Cinderella was a Redhead
by NeLLyRaE
Summary: Lily Evans has problems she sleepwalks, and always ends up in weird places she's flunking Arithmancy, she has no boyfriend her best friends is obsessed with dieting James Potter won't stop annoying her and she has no boyfriend. but will that change?
1. Chapter 1

My sister and I have always been different. To start off with, I'm magic, which is admittedly a little unusual. We are also complete opposites. She is way too organized, completely clean, completely perfect, and completely ordinary. I am extremely unorganized, my room is a disaster, and I am late for everything. I also strive to be unordinary in everything I do. For instance, when my mother told me and my sister Petunia we needed glasses, I got bright pink ones with fake jewels along the edges. My sister got boring square brown ones. I still wear those glasses, as I love them and have put numerous spells and charms on them to keep them in good condition. I, of course, don't wear them in the day; daytime is reserved solely for contacts.

Let's take another situation. If my sister Petunia were somehow going to a school where you learned magic that for some reason was called Hogwarts, she would have woken up to her perfectly clean bedroom, with a nice, neat trunk filled with nicely folded clothes and stacked books. _I,_ on the other hand, woke up on the floor of our bathroom. _No_, I did not fall asleep on the toilet; I have a sleep-walking problem. Sad, I know, but I've been waking up in weird places ever since I had a dream that a boa constrictor, wearing my mother's pink and red bathrobe I might add, was chasing me. So, on the morning before my first day back at Hogwarts, I woke up on the bathroom floor with my sister glaring down at me.

"Is this a new tradition, then?" she asked in that perfect voice of hers that I hate. "Sleeping in the bathroom before you go back to that freak school?" She glared down at me as if everything from my messy red hair to my mismatched socks had personally tried to strangle her in her sleep. Before I could answer she stormed out of the room, muttering about needing a very large cup of coffee every time I was home. As you can see, my sister and I are great friends. I decided to take advantage of the situation and immediately headed into the shower and turned up the water extremely hot. I love long, hot showers. My psycho sister likes short cold showers. Insane, I know.

My peace was again interrupted by the Perfection herself yelling at me to get out of the shower. There was also something in her yells and rants about longer showers being unable to help anyway, as I would never be prettier than a slug. She is such a kind sister. We are obviously very close. I decided to stay in the shower even longer than usual just to make her angrier. Sure enough, as I walked out of the bathroom wrapped up in my bright orange towel, I distinctly heard her mumble "slug" as I walked by. I swear as soon as I turn seventeen I will turn her into a slug just to prove that I am prettier than one. That is a comforting thought.

I surveyed my wardrobe, wanting to look reasonably together on my first day back. One of my best friends, Clarissa, has made it her life goal to turn me into something moderately fashionable. So far she has been failing dismally, but I decided not to put her into an immediate state of depression by looking horrible on my first day back. I pulled on a cream colored lacy tank top, dark blue jeans, and a very pretty necklace with a big hot pink stone dangling from the end of it. I then surveyed my jackets, but none of them looked comfortable enough, so I was forced to put on my orange bathrobe, making a mental note to take it off before I left.

I sat across from my sister at the table to see her glare at me from her completely boring anti-orange-bathrobe outfit. Gosh she was boring. I got up again and shoved a couple of pieces of bread into the toaster and kept them there for a very, very long time.

"If you want, I could just set the toast on fire for you," Petunia stated in a falsely sweet voice. "It would probably get the job done faster."

This is one of the reasons why I hate my sister.

Staring out the window I took a deep breath and attempted to not turn her into something horrible and hairy. The rest of the magical world would not be very pleased if I turned my sister into an ape or something else equally revolting. In fact, not only would I be expelled, but they would probably consider imprisonment in fear that I would grow up to be some sort of insane Muggle torturer who enjoys turning people into things that they generally would not like to be.

Just as I had reached my responsible resolve of not saying anything, Petunia decided to tease me about something else.

"Of course since you don't have a boyfriend, have never had a boyfriend, and probably never will have a boyfriend, it doesn't really matter how you act anyway."

At this moment I took the toast that I had been so calmly buttering a moment before and flung it at her horrible, annoying, cruel, merciless head.

"I don't have a boyfriend because I don't want a boyfriend!"

"Of course Lily dear, it's good of you to think that way. That's the spirit, don't lose hope yet. I'm sure some crazy guy will come around who likes people who burn their toast, have horrible abnormal hair, think that the fashion is bright orange bathrobes, and enjoy writing abnormal, over-dramatic love stories!"

She had done it.

She had just made fun of my wonderful romances.

"Well, I'm glad you finally convinced a guy to go out with you! I mean, I know how long it took and I'm glad the hard effort finally paid off to get you a mean, uptight, fat, narrow-minded beast! I'm sure you two will be very happy together because you are so ALIKE!" After screaming that word at her face, I stomped up stairs, completely forgetting about my other piece of toast.

It was only after I had had a good ten minutes to sulk, scream, and throw objects at walls that I finally walked downstairs to sit calmly next to my mother. Grabbing my now very cold toast I piled it with butter and had just reached for the sugar when Petunia decided to let her views know. _Again._

"Isn't it sweet how Lily still eats like she did when she was nine? Its just so cute how she still piles butter and sugar on," Petunia cooed nicely to my mother, who didn't look like she really knew how to respond to this comment.

"Well, at least I'm not boring. At least I don't eat only boring, tasteless oatmeal every morning just to prove I'm mature!" Yes, even her oatmeal is boring. Petunia has this strange defect of turning everything within a five-foot radius of her completely boring. Only with the most stubborn of Gryffindor minds have I managed not to fall under her dark spell. Petunia just smiled sweetly at me, as if I were a little kid, and she thought it was cute when I tried to fight with her. I just glared at her. I am not above glaring, Petunia can smile and be sarcastic and pretend to be nice all she wants, but I will just say what I think outright. The rest of breakfast was spent as a silent contest to see who could keep their front up better. Petunia with her fake smile and I with a glare that quite plainly told her she needed to die.

"Well, honey, we should probably get going." My mother said, attempting to break the silence. "It's just me who's going to be taking you today." I ran gratefully upstairs to grab my trunk and regretfully take off the orange bathrobe. Running quickly down the stairs I managed to trip (of course) and had just managed to get back up again when my family came into the entrance way to say goodbye. I hugged my dad, exchanged good-byes, put a smile on my face as my dad said the usual about how proud he was of me, with my sister glaring at the pair of us from behind. I turned to Petunia.

"Have a wonderful term!" She said sarcastically, still smiling that annoying superior smile of hers. She reached out her arms to give me a hug which did surprise me a bit; I hadn't hugged Petunia since I was eight. I exchanged the embrace only to feel something wet and slimy slide down my back. I shot backwards, reaching my hands under and trying to get whatever it was. I finally got it.

A slug.

My own sister had shoved a slug down my back. I mean, it's not like I expected us to become best friends or anything, but it would've been kind of nice if she didn't shove bugs down my shirt on the first day of school. I smiled at her, grabbed the slug and shoved it down her shirt before skipping into the car and shoving my stuff in the back. My mother soon followed and started the car, muttering the whole time about how she had _never _fought with her sisters when she was younger.

"So, honey, who's the lucky guy?"

"WHAT?" I shrieked.

"Who's your boyfriend?"

Did everyone in my family have to badger me about this continually? There is more to life than boys.

"I don't have one," I muttered defiantly. Why did I have to have this conversation every single day?

"Come now, Lily, there must be someone. You can tell your dear mother."

I glared at her. Petunia might not be the only one that is turned into an ape.

"Mum, I don't have a boyfriend, and I don't want one." But that infuriating woman just smiled knowingly at me. Why was every member of my family so frustrating?

"Mum, I just can't find a guy that's right. I'm not gonna date a guy unless I really, really like him." Mother, of course, did not accept this answer. I swear, half the time it seems like her purpose in life is to marry Petunia and me off.

"But what about that one guy across the street? He's nice and–"

"Mom, no. He's nice, but he's not funny, or romantic, or–"

"Honey, it sounds like you're looking for Prince Charming, and I'm sorry but that's just not going to happen."

I thought family was supposed to be supporting, comforting, and accepting. Apparently, I was very wrong.

Finally after a very long drive with my mom suggesting every guy even close to my age, we arrived at the train station. I practically jumped out of the car, grabbed my trunk, kissed my mother good-bye and before she could even suggest whatever guy was next on her list, I was gone.

And as I was innocently walking towards platform 9 ¾ I did something extremely graceful and Lily-like: I tripped. But no, I couldn't just trip on the pavement and scrape my knee. No, of course not, I had to fall into a humongous puddle that was filled with mud, trash and other things I don't want to think about. I also fell face first and was completely covered. Sitting up, I just decided to sit there for a while. Don't ask why. But I felt that falling into a humongous puddle of disgusting mud on the first day back for my last year of school, was something that should be remembered forever and eternity. Besides, once I got up I would have to walk through the barrier and onto the platform where everyone could see/tease me, before I could finally magic the mud off.

So, that was the reason why I was sitting depressed-like in a puddle of stuff that I don't want to think about when I heard a voice behind me that I have hated since the very first day of school.

"Hey Evans! I knew you were weird, but deliberately sitting in mud, now that just beats all! Need a hand?" I turned around to see the very last person I wanted to see when I was stuck in a puddle of mud; James Potter. My arch enemy.

The year was off to a brilliant start.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two: Mud**

The traumatic events of this morning have forced me to procrastinate on telling you about my passionate hatred of a certain person that normal people like to refer to as James Potter. I, however, am not a normal person and therefore do not call him by the name that his unfortunate parents decided to give him. To me, he is known as King of the Gorilla People. The Gorilla People are his band of followers, more commonly known to normal people as the Marauders. I think that this is a terrible name for them, which is why I dubbed them in second year the Gorilla People.

Some people at my school, girls in particular, would argue with me over James being the King. They would say that Sirius Black is the King because he is, in their words, the best thing that ever happened to them. I say that they are pathetic if they think a _boy_ is the best thing in their lives. Do not get me wrong, I didn't name James as the King in order to compliment him. I named him the King because I hate him even more than Arithmancy, which is saying something because Arithmancy involves math, and I would rather eat the canned pig's eyes that have been sitting on my grandmother's counter for fifty years than do math.

You might have also wondered over my choice of names. I chose to call them Gorilla People because that is what they act like half the time. They run around tackling each other, showing off and acting like immature, spoiled, self-centered brats, which is exactly what they are.

I do not know what the King of the Gorilla People thought he was doing when he decided to lift me out of the mud and drag me and my trunk through the barrier. I do have a sense of pride. I was not at all happy about the person I hate even more than Arithmancy not only seeing me sitting nonchalantly in a pile of mud, but helping me out of it. It was also not very comforting to see he had a very big and gorilla-like grin on his horrible gorilla-like face.

The rest of the female population might think he's handsome, tall, muscular and altogether their dream guy, but I still insist that he looks like a gorilla. After he half dragged me through that terrifying brick wall—I've always been afraid of it because there is still that part of me that was raised by Muggles that insists that the brick wall that I'm trying to run through will remain a solid brick wall and have no magical properties except giving me a very, very, big bruise—he stood me up straight and zapped the mud off me himself.

"Well, Evans, you should be glad I'm here. Who knows, the terrifying pile of mud might still be holding you captive if it weren't for me and my supernatural strength." This is why Potter is an immature gorilla. He assumes that he rescued me from violent, man-eating mud.

It was at this point that I realized something horrible and traumatizing; it was my seventh year, I had just gone through the gateway for the last time ever. And I had done it being dragged by the King of the Gorillas. But did Potter notice that I was suddenly even more furious? No, of course not, he was still talking. Did he ever shut-up?

"You know Evans, usually the Night in Shining Armor, which would be me, gets to carry home the Damsel in Distress, which would be you, after he rescues her. So, you owe me a date." He said this all in a deep voice that he obviously thought was romantic and 100 guaranteed to get a date. I could tell that he had practiced this voice over the summer, the last time he had tried to ask me out with his supposedly romantic voice, I had told him that he sounded like a rat with a head cold. This wasn't much better.

"I think that, by asking me out, you are assuming that I wanted to be rescued and was overjoyed with you dragging me quite irreverently through the barrier? Because I did NOT enjoy it, James Potter! You just ruined the last time I will ever be able to go through that archway!" The King of the Gorilla People looked quite shocked by this comment, as if he had been certain that that his new romantic voice would work.

"And now I'm going to have to do it all over again!" I screamed at him. I seemed to be screaming a lot this morning. With that comment, I grabbed my trunk from his hands and marched back through the gateway, wondering vaguely if a Hogwarts student had ever before walked back into the Muggle world just for the sake of going through a brick wall.

Upon getting back, I decided that I needed to do the entire process again. Do not ask why I felt the need to go back in the puddle of mud and other-things-I-did-not-want-to-think-about, but something about having Potter be the one to rescue me made me want to do it all over again, just so I could be the one to take the mud off.

Potter followed me through the archway and that's why he was staring opened mouthed with the rest of the people at the train station as I flung myself deliberately into the puddle. I turned around to face Potter as he stared at me completely confused that not only did his romantic voice fail to give him a date, but it had somehow turned me insane enough to jump in a mud puddle in front of about 200 onlooking Muggles. As I stared defiantly at him, I decided to show him that not only was I unafraid of mud, but I was more than willing it let it touch me. I grabbed a big handful, raised it to my head and rubbed it through my hair.

Potter gaped at me. I could just imagine what was going through his gorilla shaped head: "Lily has been cursed by You-Know-Who and now she is completely insane. Why else would she put mud in her hair?" Or simply: "What the heck happened to Lily over the summer?" Neither one of these thoughts managed to improve my mood at all. I stood up, glared at him, and dragged my trunk through the barrier with what I thought was an intelligent and all-knowing look on my face.

I was rather proud of myself, really. Not only had I refused to date the King of the Gorillas, but I had shown him that I would rather humiliate myself and put mud all over my carefully chosen outfit than be anywhere near him.

Just as this happy thought passed through my head, Clarissa came up to me squealing excitedly—what is it with us girls and squealing?—when she noticed that I was covered in mud.

"Lily, what happened to you?"

I glared at her. Maybe it was rather mean of me to glare at my best friend, but I was rather mad at her that she did not recognize the mud for what it was; a triumph, NOT a mistake.

"Potter." I mumbled at her grudgingly.

"Potter pushed you in the mud?" she asked skeptically, knowing exactly how much the King of the Gorilla people liked me, and how unlikely it was that he would push his Dearly Beloved into the mud.

"No, he helped me out of the mud, so obviously I had to go back in." She stared at me as if what I was saying didn't make perfect sense, but it did. Clarissa took a deep breath, closing her eyes as if it was unimaginable that I would fling myself into a puddle of mud on the first day of school. Apparently, she decided to ignore my odd behavior and hope it would go away before any of the guys she fancied came along. I got my wand out and regretfully washed off the marks of one of my best successes.

We started walking into the train dragging my extremely heavy trunk behind us. I honestly do not know why my trunk is so heavy. It isn't like I brought _that _much stuff. Not nearly as much as Clarissa, or another one of my other best friends, Guinevere, who both packed their trunks with make-up and other unnecessary items that they think for their own strange reasons makes them look better.

We finally managed to drag my stuff into the compartment where Guinevere and my fourth best friend; Sybill Trelawney were. Guinevere jumped up to give me a hug, yelling greetings the whole time.

"LILY! I'm so glad to see you! I've missed you so much! And I've missed Hogwarts! And I've missed our pranks! And I missed procrastinating on homework with you! And I missed dumping water balloons on you! And I missed the BOYS!" Guinevere said this loud and fast. Guinevere has the strangest passion/obsession for boys that I find I am unable to understand.

"I've missed you too, Guin!" I said. Guinevere hated her name. She says she was named after some old boring princess that nobody really cared about except for a great aunt of hers who insisted she be named it. Great Aunt Seleania is 98 years old and in Guinevere's words, "still refuses to die."

I turned to the other girl in the room. Sybill did not jump up and start screaming like Guinevere did. Instead she stood solemnly and shook my hand slowly and majestically.

"Sybill! I haven't seen you in forever!" I said, abandoning the handshake and giving the brunette a hug.

"Yes, it has been a very long time," Sybill said solemnly. "I am afraid to tell you that the Darkness is closing in."

"The Darkness is closing in?" I said in a falsely concerned voice. I was quite used to her predictions of death by now. "Why, whatever does that mean?"

"It means that Death is drawing closer and that the light is being stomped out. It means doom will soon befall us. And I am sorry to admit that we may not survive these dark omens." Sybill said this all in her regular mysterious voice. I stifled a laugh.

"Oh, come now, Sybill, it can't be that bad. Why don't you be a bit more cheerful for once?" Clarissa exclaimed impatiently.

"Because, Clarissa, the forces of life have not chosen to bestow on me light, unimportant matters such as happiness."

We all rolled our eyes. We were _quite _used to this by now. We all knew that she wasn't a true Seer, but didn't want to break poor Sybill's heart. She loved predicting people's deaths. If that privilege was denied then she would probably transfigure herself into a cockroach, or something else horrible like that.

It was then that Valerie walked in. Valerie is the fifth member of our group and the most drastic of us. In terms of style that is. It looked as if Clarissa was about to faint by just looking at what Valerie had done to herself.

Valerie has always tried to defy fashion in the most drastic ways possible. In first year she decided on wearing extremely long, extremely thick, fake eyelashes. In second year she dressed only in purple. She had even bewitched her robes to a bright purple. The teachers had not been very happy about this but Dumbledore just laughed and said something about the joys of being young. In fourth year she died her hair black and refused to cut it at all, not even the slightest bit. She also insisted on straightening it so much that it was completely flat and lifeless.

Clarissa has been at war with her forever over fashion, always insisting that "she could be pretty if she didn't insist on being ugly." Valerie did not listen to her, just smiled that gorgeous smile of hers that I've always been jealous of and continued to paint her nails neon green. But obviously she had decided to do something special for our seventh and final year here.

She had cut her hair very, very short. She had died it bright orange. She had spiked it up with some very strong hair gel. She was wearing the fake eyelashes again.

Clarissa mouthed wordlessly for a full thirty seconds before letting out a screech."What have you done? I thought we had seen the worst of it with those weird fake tattoos all over the place but _this _is terrible!"

"Just because my sense of fashion isn't as narrow minded as yours, and isn't controlled by whatever some super model says, doesn't mean that my fashion is horrible. I wanted the real me to not only be on the inside, but the outside as well."

We all gaped at her.

"Then you must be trying to get the image across to everyone that your inside is a freak! This is absolutely ridiculous." Clarissa nearly yelled.

That was the point where I decided to interfere, before they killed each other. Unfortunately, this pleasure was denied to me by the presence of the Gorilla People walking into our compartment, all four of them.

"Hello, ladies," James Potter said, trying to look cool but failing miserably as Sirius Black was standing right behind him trying to place a sparkly purple tiara onto his head without him noticing.

"Hello, bigheads!" said Valerie. She had never been afraid to express her feelings in the most reckless way possible.

"Nice hair," Pettigrew said, smiling that annoying superior smile that all of the Marauders seemed to have mastered, although I must say he isn't nearly as good at it as Sirius is.

Sirius finally managed to place the tiara on an unsuspecting Potter's head. It seemed the Marauders were not content with merely pulling pranks on the student community, but their best friends as well. These guys are an odd bunch.

"Well, we were just stopping in to offer our condolences," Remus said smoothly, trying not to laugh at Potter's ridiculous crown.

"What do you mean, Lupin?" I said in my most dangerously quiet voice. Like Potter, I had worked on this voice all summer, unlike Potter, I managed to succeed with it.

"He means, of course, that we are sorry that you will soon be facing extreme embarrassment due to the fact that your pranks will not be nearly as good ours this year, and you will lose the bet magnificently." Sirius Black said, smirking at us.

The Bet. Those are the two words that have haunted my every thought since the day in second year when we made it. I've always loved to pull pranks. Most people think that guys are the only ones to take pleasure in these activities, but they are quite wrong. You see, if you live with Petunia, you come to desperate measures in order to ensure your sanity. In a household where Petunia literally tries to make everything perfect, I had no choice but to pull pranks in order to make it somewhat normal.

As you probably guessed, most of the pranks were on her, and I can't say I feel any remorse at all for doing them. At Hogwarts, I found Valerie, who liked pranks as much as I did, and we got everyone else in our group to do them as well. Unfortunately, we had competition. Soon we had to try our very best in order to out-prank Potter and his henchmen. Pretty soon, we were at each others' throats and created The Bet: Whoever has the most creative/best pranks at the end of our seven years wins the prize. We'll win. I guarantee it.

Other people might have responded to this mean and egotistical comment made by the King of the Gorilla People in a calm matter. But I am not a calm person, so I decided to do something drastic. I put a spell on them. In all honesty, it was a curse, and I can't honestly say that I wasn't going against school rules. But I have to say that seeing the King of the Gorilla People and his henchmen in elaborately designed white wigs was a sight that I will not forget for a while. I'm sure they won't forget either. As they cursed and yelled and stumbled dumbly about trying to find a spell to reverse it, I slammed the door in their face and locked it with the most powerful locking spell I knew.

Everyone started to laugh, except me. I was still furious. You could say that I am very, very competitive. Guinevere would say that this is an understatement. I just cannot stand the thought of losing this thing. I could just imagine Potter when we're both ninety and in some care home for old people, and he would say something along the lines of; "And you lost that prank war so bad! Ha ha ha. You didn't even come close to winning." And then the old and crazy me would _Avada Kedavra_ him, and I would end up in Azkaban, which I have heard is not very fun. So you see, losing The Bet would not only result in sincere loss of pride but eventual imprisonment as well.

But did my friends recognize the seriousness of the situation? Of course not. They continued to laugh. It wasn't until Clarissa brought up a particular embarrassing and horrible subject, that I finally postponed being mad and competitive.

"Did Lily tell you," she paused, staring around at us as if to make the moment more dramatic, "that she made Head Girl?" They all stared at me completely open mouthed. I glowered at all of them. In my mind nothing was possibly worse than being made Head Girl. When most people get a letter saying they've been chosen as Head Girl, they start jumping up and down and screaming in excitement. That did not happen to me. I simply fainted. That was the first time in my life that I have fainted, and I am determined that it shall be the last. I have made it my life's work to pull pranks and do other things that usually give me The Look from teachers. Especially McGonagall.

The Look is what all teachers practice day in and day out. Once you have mastered The Look, you can scare and control all of your students without even trying. McGonagall has mastered The Look better than anyone I've ever known. I proceeded to tell her that the first time she gave me a detention. She did not think that this comment was amusing at all, and I was simply sentenced to another detention. You see, teachers don't want students to know that they had to practice in order to master The Look, but I knew she had probably practiced for several years to get it down that well, and that is why I told her so. Other teachers, such as Professor Flitwick—bless his heart, I just love that little old man—and Professor Slughorn, cannot do The Look at all. They simply look like they're constipated the moment they try.

But back to the subject at hand. I did not want to be Head Girl, the teachers must have been crazy to make me Head Girl, and there was no way I was going to stay Head Girl. But a bad thing happened. They always seem to happen to me. My parents somehow got hold of the letter telling me the unpleasant news. They were so happy and proud that I just couldn't make myself break their hearts and carry on with my intention of immediate resignation. That is why I have the horrible position right now.

After staring at me in shock for a while, my so-called friends started laughing hysterically at me. Really, what was so funny about me having to endure torture for the rest of the miserable year? There were actual tears of laughter running down Valerie's face.

"Well if you all don't mind, I need to be headed for the meeting itself," I said, glaring at all of them. But did they stop laughing and sympathize with me that I was forced to go to a meeting with a bunch of spoiled, teacher's pet, prats? No, they continued to laugh as I headed out to my doom.

As I entered the room that would undoubtedly be filled with a bunch of goody-two-shoes, I took a deep breath and attempted to put up a fake face, something responsible and encouraging, something that tells everyone that I do know what I am doing, even though I have no idea why I was put in this position. But the moment I walked through the door the whole responsible face changed into a look that probably made me resemble a frog. You know the phrase, "her chin dropped to the floor "? Well that is the exact and only description I will give you about my once-responsible face.

The reason that I looked like a frog is quite simple: James Potter was there, and he was wearing the Head Boy's badge. The first thought that went through my head was, "Dumbledore must have gone insane." I was seriously worried about his mental health at that moment, picking the two most trouble-making and Look-getting people in the school.

But, I am proud to say that after only 40 seconds of me standing there dumbly with my mouth hanging open and acting like a frog, that I put my responsible face on again and turned to the group. The King of The Gorilla People was just as shocked to see me as I was him, so I am happy to say that I was not the only one there acting like a frog. The prefects must not only have been worried about McGonagall's sanity, but the sanity of their two Heads as well.

After about half an hour of giving instructions out that I didn't really understand to a bunch of good-grade, anti-prank, rule-abiding students, I finally escaped. I almost ran to my compartment, completely ignoring the King of the Gorilla People as he again tried to use his supposedly romantic voice on me and get a date. After getting to the compartment and again locking the door, I said the first three highly intelligent words that came to my mind.

"I. Am. Doomed."

And what did my so-called friends do? They laughed. They went hysterical, actually. For the second time that day, I was the cause of someone's hysterical laughter. I now know that I will grow up to be a mad-cat-loving-lady, laughed at by all. My future is not looking bright.


	3. Chapter 3

I always thought that the Hogwarts way of doing feasts was very different from the way we ate dinner at home. You see, at my house, whenever we have family over or we go to some other strange relative's house we always have to wait forever. I honestly think that the adults do it on purpose, just to teach us "young ones" patience. The first thing they do is make you carry the delicious, hot and buttery food into the dining room where you can view all the other delicious hot buttery foods. You are forced to stare at them but are unable to eat them. Than you must wait until every single person in the house finishes their conversation and sits down. This usually takes forever.

Petunia is always one of the last people to sit down because she is trying to prove to everyone that she is not like her irresponsible sister**—**that would be me**—**who sits staring at the food in an uncivilized way the moment it reaches the table.

You then have to wait for someone to say the toast. Grandpa proposes it, with a hopeful look on his face. And someone says kindly, "Why don't you say it?" He refuses, but still looks hopeful, until someone finally insists that he dodoes it, even though he pretends he doesn't want to. This process usually takes a whole five precious minutes of staring at delicious food. Grandpa does this every single time we get together and still thinks that no one has caught on to his ingenious tactic.

Then after I have finally clinked glasses with every other person in the room, I have to wait some more. I have to wait because there is another stupid rule in our family about letting the person who cooked the meal have the first bite. That same person pretends like they don't know that everyone is waiting, and starts a long conversation with whomever is next to her before finally saying in a very unsurprised voice, "Oh, were you all waiting for me?" That person pretends to be horrified, even though I know they are relishing the moment, and slowly and dramatically finally takes a bite. Then, I can eat.

But at Hogwarts it's not like that. Instead, they just make you think and imagine the food while waiting for the stupid munchkins to be sorted into their stupid houses. This way is much worse, because you have to imagine everything. I have a very vivid imagination and by the time the stupid sorting process is finished, I am about ready to die. This is exactly what happened. I slouched, I grumbled, I glared at the innocent munchkins, I acted exactly how a Head Girl should not act. But do you know what the King of the Gorilla People does? He acts like the Goody-two-shoes that I have sworn to hate. He sits up straight, he pays close attention, he claps, he smiles, he gives the new First Years a pat on the back. And all the while I am slouching in my seat wishing that all of the First Years would jump off a cliff so I could just eat the delicious food I know is waiting for me.

Finally, Dumbledore says his nonsense words of the day, "buttery, sizzling, delicious, mouth-watering." He looked right at me when he was saying, that as if he knew exactly what I had been thinking. Then finally the food appeared. I immediately piled food onto my plate. Clarissa sighed dramatically at me and grabbed a salad.

"Why do you eat those disgusting leaves anyway?" I said, pointing at her salad. I hate salad. It honestly is just a bunch of artificially dyed green leaves that they have decided to call food.

"Because it's good, and I have decided to watch my weight." I gaped at her. Watching her weight? Did anything sound more horrible and unsatisfactory as denying yourself the best things in life, such as chocolate, and sizzling, buttery, fattening food?

"That sounds horrible," I said. She simply glared at me and grabbed some tomato soup. I shuddered, and took some of the more fattening and delicious food. Valerie was doing what I was doing, but Sybill was not. Sybill was just sitting there with her head held high.

"What are you doing?" I asked her, exasperated. Were all of my friends insane?

"I am fasting, to improve my Inner Sight." I am resigned. My best friends are loonies and will have to live in the Crazy ward at St. Mungo's. I will end up bringing them flowers while they wear those horrible nightgowns.

"The only thing starving yourself will do to your inner sight is make it extremely hungry," I told her sternly while piling her plate with food. She glared at me and then grudgingly took up her fork.

I was just about to start a highly intellectually stimulating conversation when Potter walked up to our table and wriggled his abnormally large backside into the seat next to me.

"Hello, Lily Darling!" he said, with a hopeful look on his face.

Clarissa would have known what to do in this situation. She would have known how to make him leave. But I was not Clarissa. I simply took up my plate and walked to the other side of the table. I sat next to the munchkins.

"Hello, munchkins." They all shirked away from me as if I was carrying some deadly Seventh Year disease.

To my dismay, Potter did not take the very obvious hint. He came and again sat next to me and the first year.

"Hello, everyone!" He smiled at all of the First Years. They smiled back at him. How come Potter doesn't have the insane Seventh Year disease? Life is not fair.

"Go away." I glared at him.

"As much as it pains me to distress you Lily Darling, I am unable to obey your request."

Again, I walked off. I sat next to some pale-looking Fifth Year who looked like she wanted me to go away, too. Does everyone hate me?

"Hello, who are you?" I asked her. She glared at me before answering.

"Natasha."

"Hello, Natasha, I'm Lily." And just as our conversation was about to get especially interesting, Potter walked up.

I tried to imagine what Clarissa would say if she were me. Clarissa is very good at getting her way. Some people might just call it spoiled, but I think it's a talent that for some reason I was not given. If I had been given that talent I would be given a lot more chocolate than I am currently. Clarissa could have gotten the chocolate if she wanted it. What would Clarissa do now?

"I hate you," I told him. Fine, that was definitely not what Clarissa would say, but that was all I could think of.

I walked off angrily again. He followed me. I traded places again. He followed me. In a matter of minutes he was chasing me around the hall as I practically ran in my attempt to get away from him. I had just picked up a glass of pumpkin juice to fling at his head when I heard a shout behind me.

"EVANS! WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU ARE DOING?" Professor McGonagall looked at me furiously. "DOES THIS LOOK LIKE A PLAYGROUND TO YOU?" She screamed at me. "DETENTION! FOR BOTH OF YOU!"

McGonagall sat down and attempted to gain some composure. I flung the juice at Potter and went to sit down between Guinevere and Sybill. The King of The Gorilla People followed me.

After a very long meal full of me giving Potter the silent treatment, I was quite relieved to see my dorm. I immediately started jumping on my bed and than started leaping from my bed to Guinevere's bed, which was right next to mine. I hopped around excitedly, squealing happily.

Guinevere and Clarissa walked into the room, talking about some new fashion that I really did not want to hear about, but they would probably tell me anyway.

"Lily, stop jumping on my bed!" Guinevere shouted, frustrated at me. But I saw that she was trying to hide a smile.

I continued to jump on her bed and watched as the sheets slowly began to slide off. Guinevere came over and yanked me onto the floor. I glared up at her; she smiled and began straightening her bed.

I began jumping on my own bed again and started doing all sorts of complicated and difficult flips. Valerie and Sybill walked into the room. Everyone started unpacking.

"Lily, do you think that maybe you should put your stuff away?" Clarissa asked me, gesturing to my trunk that was still sitting neglected by my bed.

"No," I answered bluntly.

"But you will be all rushed in the morning and might not have time to even put on your make-up!" Clarissa said this as if she could imagine nothing worse than being unable to pack unnecessary powders and goop on yourself.

"But unpacking sounds so tedious and unnecessary." Clarissa shook her head at me. I watched amused as everyone placed all of their possessions in their preordained spots.

I continued to jump, flip and squeal as they worked. I glared at my trunk. I didn't like my trunk. It looked unhappy, probably because it wanted all of my junk to be taken out of it. Or it could have possibly had a bad home life as a baby trunk. Maybe its parents were mean to him. _I'm sorry, trunk, _I thought to it, but who could bother to unpack when she was as excited as I was?

My friends finally finished their perfecting and started putting their pajamas on.

"Lily! Get ready for bed!" Guinevere shouted at me.

"NO! I would have to open my trunk!" I yelled, horrified at the thought.

"Then open your trunk. It's not that hard!" Guinevere said, looking up at me.

"But my trunk is sad!"

"How is your trunk sad?" Guinevere asked, apparently amused with my trunk's depression.

"I don't know. I think it had a life as a baby trunk. Don't you think it looks sad?"

"No. I don't. Now please get you pajamas on!" Guinevere looked as if she was trying to suppress giggles. I really don't understand why she isn't taking my trunk's depression seriously.

"I told you, I don't want to open my trunk!" Guinevere sighed dramatically and started toward my trunk. She opened it and glared at me.

"Lily, did you even consider folding your clothes, or putting your make-up in a box, or at least taking your candy wrappers out?"

"No," I told her. "Why would I do that?" She sighed and started mumbling under her breath. Rummaging through my stuff, she finally pulled out a pair of pink plaid pajama pants and a white tank-top.

"Put them on." She told me sternly. I sighed.

"Yes, Mum." She glared at me, we started laughing and pretty soon everyone was in bed with the covers drawn up over their heads.

I waited under the blankets until I could hear deep breathing**—**and some snoring**—**from everyone. I quietly pulled back my covers and slowly crept towards the window. I decided that I was going to go on the roof. No, I am not going to jump off the roof. I am not a suicidal teenager. This is simply a place I discovered back when I was having a really bad day in second year. You see, if you stick your head straight out the window and look to the left, there is a ledge that leads to a flat area on the roof. I have gone there countless times to be by myself. No one else knows about it and I would prefer to keep it that way.

I carefully eased out of the window and maneuvered myself across the ledge and onto the flat area of roof that I have named Francois. Do not ask me why I named it Francois, I have no idea. I often do things completely weird and random like naming parts of buildings strange things like Francois.

I sat down on the piece of roof and looked out at the view. Out of all the beautiful places at Hogwarts, this was my favorite place. There was a beautiful view of the lake**—**sometimes I have stayed out for hours watching the foam come up from where the Giant Squid was**—**and you could see the sky. There was nothing blocking your view. This was also the place where I did my romance writing.

I shifted a brick that made up part of the roof and moved it aside. There was a slight cubby hole there, I had hidden countless stories and papers that I had written there. I never threw anything out. I still have stories that I wrote in first year in there.

A light drop of rain hit my cheek and slid down into my tank top. I reflected that maybe, just maybe, I should not be on the roof with a tank top, writing romances at ten o'clock at night when it was raining. But hey, whoever heard of being stopped by a little bit of rain?

Picking up a fresh piece of parchment and a quill, I started to write.

_Golden light streamed down onto a grassy field. The sky was a pure, unforgettable blue, the clouds were puffy. Even the birds seemed cheerful. But the girl standing on the grass knew that this was not a cheerful place. She knew that the sky was an empty promise, that the clouds were not there to cheer her up, that even the birds' sweet song was all a lie. For the clouds and sky and birds all hovered over the girl, as she sat in the dirt. Her white, frayed dress was stained with dirt, her long hair fell lifeless on her shoulders, the tears rolling down her cheeks seemed to be permanently engraved there. The girl did not like the happy sky and she thought that the birds mocked her. She slowly rocked back and forth, oblivious to everything, as she stared at the grave in front of her. She rocked faster and faster, her tears rolling down harder, her face becoming more desperate. The Earth seemed to sense her pain. The sky began to get gray and dark from storm clouds, the birds stopped singing and scrambled to find places to hide. Raindrops began to fall heavily, casting a cold blanket on the Earth. But the girl didn't notice this. She simply stared at the grave, rocking faster and faster. _

It was perfect, I reflected. It was a perfect start to my story. Dramatic, depressing, and completely my type of book.

Just as I was having these happy revelations, a sudden urge came over me. I wanted to dance on the roof.

No, I'm not joking.

The urge was so strong and powerful that I could no longer resist. I stood up and started twirling and spinning and jumping all over the place. It was wonderful. How many people get to say that they danced in their pajamas on the roof of Hogwarts? I am happy to say that I am one of the lucky few. The raindrops got harder until they were pounding down all over the surface. I sat down, gasping for breath. This is exactly the type of thing I like to do: writing overly dramatic love stories and jumping around on roofs at midnight. I placed the beginning of my story back into the cubby hole and placed the brick over it.

I stood up again. The debate started in me. The more sensible part of me said that I needed to go back inside immediately; it was dark, it was cold, and it was raining hard. The other more reckless part of me wanted to dance again, it wanted to spin in the rain and get my pajamas even more soaked than they already were. The struggle started. I debated with myself for a full minute before I couldn't take it anymore. The temptation was too strong.

I started dancing on the roof. Again.

I can tell you right now that I am not a talented dancer. Most people wouldn't even call it dancing. They would call it demented spinning. Sadly, they are right. I should have realized this before I started jumping on the roof. I should have realized that being clumsy, uncoordinated, and ungraceful, I probably shouldn't be spinning on my roof. But unfortunately I did not realize this.

One moment I was twirling in the rain with my hands up and my head tilted back, and the next, my feet were flying out from under me and I had no control. I fell back and started tumbling into what I knew must be certain death.

I do not why I always get myself into situations like these. Everyone else seems to live these normal falling-from-roof free lives. But no, not me, I dance around in the rain writing secret romances and than fall off a roof and pray that I don't die.

Dealing with the King of the Gorilla People seems like a dream come true compared to this.


	4. Chapter 4

It looked like Sybill was right about the 'Darkness closing in.' I could see it closing in around me and preparing to kill an innocent girl who only wanted to dance on her roof. 

Fear flooded through me. I couldn't scream, however. You'd think a girl would be able to scream when she was falling helplessly from a roof, but whatever. I heard some little part of me yelling that she didn't want to die. No one really knows fear until they fall from a roof. I guess this is what happens when you write stories about girls in graveyards.

Fortunately, Sybill's prediction was inaccurate, and, to my relief, the darkness stopped closing in and I stopped falling.

There were two things that saved me. The first was that Hogwarts was not a normal castle and therefore did not have a normal roof. Instead of going in nice even slants, the roofs twist and turn and are contorted into all sorts of strange shapes. I was lucky-or unlucky, depending on how you think of things- fall on one of the strange contorted shapes that the Hogwarts founders decided to call a roof. I probably do not need to tell you that falling on a hard cement surface did not feel very good, in fact, it felt a bit like someone was attempt to cut my entire body in half with a plastic knife. I felt my hands unconsciously grasping all over the roof, trying to clutch onto anything that could possibly hold my poor body up. But the efforts of my hands were fruitless. I felt my body sliding down and off the demented architecture someone had the nerve to call a roof.

The Darkness started to close in again.

But fortunately, this time, it stopped quickly. I hit another roof-shaped-thing. This one hurt even worse: Imagine being cut open with a plastic spoon as opposed to a knife. I felt my body start to slide off again. This is where the second thing that saved me comes in; apparently, there was some sort of sharp metal stick poking right out of the roof. I have absolutely no idea why the builder decided to put a metal stick there, but perhaps it has some insane purpose such as catching falling girls from roofs. The horrible medal stick ripped right through my skin, forming a long, and painful cut from my thigh all the way up to my chest. In a way, it felt like I was being scratched by giant, rusty, eyebrow tweezers. In a normal situation I would've screamed over being attacked by eyebrow tweezers, but at the moment I thought I should probably focus on surviving.

As I slid down the roof I managed to grab hold of the metal piece that had scratched me. I stopped falling. I swear I almost cried in relief, except, like I said earlier, I was too busy focusing on survival. I had not gotten myself into a very good situation: I was hanging from a metal stick on the roof at midnight. Luck was definitely not with me tonight. My arms began to ache and scream and I knew it wasn't going to be long before the Darkness started closing in again.

It was than that I realized that there was a window right by my leg. It just shows how stupid I am. I was composing in my head what my funeral was going to be like when I could've already been off this stupid roof.

I swung my foot back and kicked through the glass, hoping that no one was underneath it. I managed to swing and maneuver my body through the window and dropped down onto a hard stone floor. I vaguely realized I was right outside the Transfiguration room and was amused at the thought of McGonagall's face when she saw the mess of broken glass I had made of her corridor.

Obviously, I was in a quite a lot of pain at the moment, the eyebrow tweezers continued to scratch and pull at the horrible cut and my vision was beginning to get a bit blurry. I was also completely frozen in shock and unable to move.

But, believe it or not, that wasn't the worst of it. The worst of it was that the last person that I would want to see at the moment was staring in shock right back at me.  
I'm sure you can probably guess who that person was.  
James Potter was standing right in front of me. But he wasn't alone. His two sidekicks, Sirius and Peter, were standing right behind him staring at me as if I had just predicted that Armageddon would be happening in the next two seconds.  
At this moment, my mouth and mind suddenly caught up with me, and I got all the hysterical screaming out that I was too afraid to do when I was falling from the roof. This probably wasn't the smartest tactic. All three boys jumped up with stunned expressions on their faces, looking as if someone had just sprayed ice water all over them. The walls seemed to echo back the sound making it an endless scream that seemed to be coming from several people, instead of one very scared girl.

I could just imagine what I must have looked like at the moment: Completely soaked, a long, bloody scratch across my side, my torn pajamas sticking to the blood, and little flecks of dirt and rust encrusting around the edges of what had once been beautiful purple pajamas; shattered glass everywhere, and me, screaming hysterically. This really wasn't my night.

I only stopped when I felt strong hands grip me tight and shake me slightly, while another pair of hands clasped right over my mouth, attempting to quiet me.

"Lily, Lily! Please shut up, you're going to wake everyone," I heard someone hiss at me. I was beginning to feel faint, so I decided to stop screaming. Actually, I felt very faint and leaned back slightly on whoever happened to be behind me. I felt the hand come off my mouth—which was a good thing, it tasted terrible—and I suddenly lost all strength and dignity that I had been so valiantly trying to preserve, completely falling against the person behind me. I looked up to messy hair and a scared face staring right down back at me, apparently I was lying against James Potter, I looked down to see that Sirius Black had been the one with his disgusting tasting hands on my mouth, Peter standing behind him. Sirius should wash his hands.

Normally I would have been revolted over lying in James Potter's arms, but at the moment I was barely keeping consciousness. A deep cut, a fall from a roof, and hysterical screaming can do that to a person.

"What the heck happened to you, Lily?" James whispered frantically down at me. "Oh, never mind," he said, shaking his head. Apparently, it had just clicked into his head that I was probably not in the best state to answer questions. He lifted me off the ground and into his revolting arms. Who did this guy think he was?  
"What are you doing, Potter?" I managed to gasp out at him.  
"What does it look like I'm doing?" he asked, walking quickly up the stairs. Sirius finally seemed to have gotten his voice back.  
"Did you just fall from the roof?" Sirius asked in complete shock.  
"No, I just enjoy breaking through windows," I said sarcastically. Sirius ignored this comment.  
"What were you doing on the roof?" But at this point I was unable to answer the question as James had just climbed a particularly steep step and jostled against the horrible cut. I yelped.  
"Sorry." James muttered. He was going pretty fast now; I was actually pretty surprised that he could carry me while practically running up the stairs. I could barely manage to walk up the stairs with my book bag. Not that I was impressed.

He finally stopped galloping up the stairs and stopped on a landing.  
"Prongs? What the heck are you doing?" Someone came out of the shadows; I noticed that it was Remus Lupin. The competitive part of me vaguely realized that they must have been preparing some prank or another before they had run into my beautiful presence.  
Remus gasped as he came close enough to see me lying, shocked, in Potter's arms.

"What did you do to her?" Remus whispered rather loudly.  
"What? I didn't do anything to her, she did it to herself!" I wanted to correct him and say that in actuality it was Francois and the rain ganging up on me and forcing me off the roof, but didn't get the chance as the King of the Gorilla People opened his large mouth again.  
"Can you please just fix her?" he asked, pointing at the cut.  
"No!" I yelled. They started making hushing noises. "Just take me to the hospital wing!"  
"Yeah, and tell Madame Pomfrey that you flew through the window and ended up like this?! She'll think we did this to you." I glared at James.  
"Good, you deserve punishment." But apparently they all chose to ignore me as Potter set me on the ground and Remus leaned over me. I wondered why Potter just didn't do the spell himself, but then assumed that, of course, he would not have the mental capacity to do such a thing. I was about to protest, but realized that that was quite hopeless as Remus took out his wand. I shut my eyes and again started to plan out my funeral. Let's just say that I didn't really trust a teenage by to fix me as opposed to the esteemed Madame Pomfrey.

There was a flash of light and for a moment it felt like the cut was being banged with a sledgehammer, but then the momentary pain stopped and my skin felt normal again. I sighed and tentatively opened my eyes, praying that I wouldn't see a tentacle or something where my leg had been. But thankfully my leg was still a leg. I probably should have thanked Remus, but my politeness, has never, nor will ever, be extended to the Gorilla People.

Potter's look of concern was then replaced by curiosity. I knew that this couldn't be good for me.

"So Evans, now that we've got that cleared up, why don't you tell us what you were doing crashing through that window."  
"How about, not." I replied nastily.  
"C'mon Lily! It's the least you could do for the guy that just saved your life!"  
"You did not save my life, Potter!" I yelled at him. They all started hushing me again and the King of the Gorilla People put his evil hand against my mouth. I glared at him. He took it off.  
Well, I decided that that was about enough excitement for one day and attempted to stand, but Potter beat me to it. He lifted me into his arms again. Why does this guy think he has the right to do that?

"Potter, put me down! I am quite able to walk by myself now!"  
"No. I don't think I will." I attempted to struggle, much to the amusement of all of them, but Potter just held tight. Why does he have to be so damn strong?

"Let go of me, now!" I hissed at him. His three henchman were laughing hysterically on the ground, but Potter continued to smile at me. He started walking again.  
"POTTER! LET GO OF ME!" I screamed at the top of my lungs. Ha, that got their attention.  
They all groaned and started running as fast as they could up the stairs, swearing under their breath. But did Potter let go of me? No, of course not. I thought that if I got him angry enough, he'd just drop me and I'd be free to go on with my happy life. But of course not. He just has to be so damn strong.

They finally stopped running and swearing when we crashed through some tapestry into what apparently was a secret passageway. I thought maybe they'd all get really angry at me, like normal people would, and they would finally set me free. I should have remembered that the Gorilla People- or Marauders as they like to call themselves- are not normal people. So, of course, they all naturally start laughing and exclaiming how exciting their lives were. Guys are so weird.

"Wow, Evans. You sure gave us a scare," Potter said, looking at me proudly.

"Well, I do my best," I responded sarcastically. "Now can you please, please, put me down!"  
"My answer's still 'no' Evans." I glared at him and tried to escape, yet again, from his over eager arms. But he just grinned at me.  
"I may, however, be willing to bargain with you, Evans," he said smoothly. I considered.  
"What do you want?" I spat out at him, with as much anger as I could from the position in his arms.  
"A kiss."  
"No," I said firmly, "absolutely not."  
"Well then, it looks like you're going to be in this position for a while." All four of them continued through the passage and onto a staircase somewhere. Can you believe this guy? My thinking was really quite sensible; there was no way he was going to be able to carry me all the way to Gryffindor Tower. I mean, I know he's strong, but even he couldn't do that.  
I was right. Five minutes later I thought I would finally get away from him.  
"Lily, I'm sorry darling, but I can carry you no longer." I was ecstatic. But then, do you know what he did? He simply handed me off to that horrible creature named Sirius Black. I could've screamed in frustration.  
"Black, put me down!"  
"Sorry, Evans, but no-can-do. You don't get put down until you kiss Prongs over here."  
"Never," I told him angrily. He just grinned at me. I attempted to escape squirming to the best of my squirming ability. But apparently Black is strong too. Five minutes later, he handed me off to Remus.  
I thought that maybe, just maybe, I'd be able to escape from this guy. He didn't appear to have super human strength like the other two. Once again, I was wrong.

"Would you PLEASE just put me down!" I spat out at Remus angrily.  
"Sorry Lily." Honestly, what gives him the right to call me Lily? I then realized who they were going to pass me off to next: Peter Pettigrew, the obnoxious, perverted, little rat of a boy. Obviously, there was no way I was going to do this. Just as Remus was about to hand me off, I started yelling again.  
"NO! Fine, fine. I'll do it." I told them grudgingly. All four of the Marauders grinned their evil little grins.

"Marvelous," said James, smirking like the demented hyena he was."Do you swear?"  
"What?"  
"Swear that you'll kiss me if Remus puts you down." I glare at him.  
"I swear," I muttered. James grinned and took me from Remus's arms.  
"Potter. Put. Me. Down."  
"Sorry, Lily, but seeing as it's you we're talking about here, there's a huge chance that you'll run away if I let go of you." I sighed. He was right. He grinned at me, closed his eyes, and puckered his lips.  
Disgusting.

I took a deep breath and looked apprehensively at this new and horrible challenge. It was either this or be carried in Pettigrew's sweaty, disgusting arms. I leaned in a little bit, trying to make myself do it, but then pulled back again. James peeked one eye open. He looked faintly annoyed that he still hadn't been kissed.

"You can kiss me now, you know."  
"I know, Potter, shut up." He shut his eyes again. After one more glance at Peter, my resolve was set. I slowly leaned in, counting to three in my head. One. C'mon Lily, you can do this. Two, almost time now. Three. I pushed my lips against his as fast as possible, pushed myself out of his arms when he wasn't expecting it, and started racing as fast as I could down the first hallway I found. I heard laughs behind me.  
"C'mon Evans, you can do better than that!" I heard Potter shout behind me. "Come back!" Ha! As if I would go back there! I quickly resolved never to tell anyone about this; not even Guinevere, to whom I confided everything. I would take this horrible and nasty secret to the grave.  
I finally managed to get back to my dorm room. It was two o' clock in the morning. Tomorrow was not going to be fun.

After a horrible and very unrestful night's sleep, I awoke to someone jumping on my bed.

"Oh LIL-EEEEEEY!!!" a loud and obnoxious voice yelled in my ear. "Time to get up! We gotta get down to breakfast in twenty minutes!" Great. This was just my luck. Apparently my long half hour shower was completely out of the question. "I don't want to get up." I mumbled, pulling the covers up on me further. Those wonderfully warmed and comfortable covers were very rudely pulled off me a second later, however.

"Lily get up!" That same obnoxious person was now tugging at my feet. After only about five hours of sleep, I was not in the mood to fight back and was pulled completely off the bed. I finally gathered the courage to open my eyes to see very bright light and a too-happy-for-this-time-of-day face looking down at me.  
"C'mon Lily, you've only got fifteen minutes now!" Guinevere yelled cheerfully down at me.

"WHAT?" I shrieked, finally processing the information and struggling out of my tangled sheets.  
"We. Need. To. Be. Downstairs. In. Fifteen. Minutes," she said slowly and clearly. I hate it when she does that. I raced to the bathroom where Clarissa and Valerie were applying their make-up. I raced into the shower, throwing my pajamas over the curtain. "Nice to see you too, Lily!" Valerie called out.  
I ignored them both as they laughed and tried to take the fastest shower in the history of the world. Piling soap and shampoo on at the same time I raced out, grabbed a towel and ran out of the bathroom. My friends laughed at the sight of me running around in nothing but a towel and trying to find all my clothes, which was rather difficult as they were all in a messy pile in my trunk. I pulled on Hogwarts robes and started yanking a brush through my hair.

"Where are my contacts?" I yelled, panicked. I started throwing everything out of my trunk in search for those stupid contraptions.  
"Lily, you would know where your contacts were if you had unpacked last night like we told you too!" Clarissa yelled at me as we both searched through all my junk on the floor.  
"I think I left them at home!" I groaned. Why did stuff like this always happen to me? I reluctantly pulled out my glasses case. I hadn't worn glasses since second year, but what choice did I have?  
"LILY!" Clarissa yelled at me, pointing at my glasses with a look on her face resembling the expression someone would wear if she found out that she was supposed to live on slugs for the rest of her life. No, I am not exaggerating.  
"Lily you CANNOT wear those!"  
"Why not?" I asked, astonished.  
"They're hideous Lily!" I stared at them; they were my pink ones with the fake jewels. What was so wrong about that?  
"They are not hideous, Clarissa!" I yelled back at her. I attempted to put them on, but Clarissa yanked them out of my hands. And do you know what she did next? She broke them. She just plain snapped them in half. What kind of best friend would do that to a person? Now, snapping them in half wouldn't be that bad, I could simply spell them together, but she didn't just snap them in half; she threw them out the window to some place where they would never be found again.  
"CLARISSA!" I screamed at her. "WHAT DID YOU DO THAT FOR?"  
"I was being a good friend by not allowing you to disgrace yourself in public. You should be thanking me!" Thanking her? I couldn't even see four feet in front of me and she wanted me to thank her?!  
Seventh year was obviously destined to be unlucky.


	5. Chapter 5

I am gong to pretend that I am a bat. Yes, that will work quite nicely. Don't bats have some sort of strange radar that they use to sense their victims coming? Yes, well I, Lily Evans, am proud to say that I will also have that radar. I'm a witch; I should certainly have some sort of strange way of sensing things in front of and around me. _Ok, deep breaths, you have bat vision! You have bat vision!_

OK, not working. You see, the reason I was trying to meditate and appeal to the Bat God to give me his awesome powers is that I can't see a damn thing. Literally, I can't see a thing in front of me. The reason for my pain was standing at my right.

Wait, I mean my left!

Yes, Clarissa was smirking at my left side, proud of her evil deed that got me into this awful predicament.

I took slow steps and started moving towards the stairs. Clarissa was laughing beside me while Guinevere and Valerie chatted paying absolutely no attention to me. Some friends they are.

OK, strategy number two: The Zombie walk. Zombies can't see, they just feel around. _I'm a zombie! I'm a zombie! _I put my arms straight out in front of me and take slow steps without bending my knees much. I'm proud to say that I'm doing a zombie impersonation quite nicely.

But it was at that moment, when I was feeling particularly proud of myself, that my zombie fingers bumped into something big and firm.

"Whoa, Evans! What's up with you?"

Shit.

I just _have _to bump into the King of the Gorilla People when I am doing my zombie impersonation.

"_Move, Potter_! I'm pretending to be a zombie!" But to my distress, Potter continued to follow me.

"Why are you pretending to be a zombie?" that horrible creature asked curiously.

"Because I like zombies," I told him sternly and attempted to race away from him. It was obviously not the best idea to go fast when you can't see four feet in front of you, are currently appealing to the Bat God and doing a zombie impersonation. So, of course, I tripped over some obnoxious person's feet and landed flat on my un-bat-radar face.

The horrible creature lifted me off the ground (ugh Why do I always find myself being picked up by him?) and set me on my feet. I glared at him, or what I thought was him.

"You like zombies?" he asked me skeptically, as if our conversation had never been interrupted by my denied escape. Clarissa was standing right behind me.

"She lost her contacts, and I had to stop her from disgracing herself in public by wearing the retched things she called glasses!" Now I glared at the blurred shape I thought was Clarissa.

James looked at me for a second before opening his fat mouth again.

"Well, I would be delighted to escort you around today, m'lady!"

_How about, not. _

"I do not need to be escorted." I told him, walking away. But again, the effect was ruined by my smashing into a wall. I pushed myself up before the creature could try to help me again.

"Oh, but Lily Love! I am oh so happy to assist you! After all, I have saved your life two times now!"

"You have NOT saved my life two times! Now get away from me, you arrogant creep!" I grabbed Clarissa and stormed away. Or, in actuality, I told Clarissa to lead me away because if she didn't I would divulge her deepest darkest secrets to the whole wide world. She quickly led me away.

It's quite a strange sensation I must say, to rely solely on the person who put me in this situation in the first place to lead me through the land of blurs that look remotely like humans, but I'd do whatever it took to escape from Potter.

Breakfast was not fun. Nor was it enjoyable, happy, relaxing, invigorating, peace-making, cheerful, funny, or in any other way a nice affair. It was pure torture. I had no idea what I was eating, I could remotely see color and slight blurry shapes, but not much more then that. For instance, it was quite a surprise when I thought I was going to be eating a pancake and ended up with a forkful of hash browns instead. Nor was it fun to pour what you thought was tea and end up with a cup of cold, rotting, dead coffee, which I spat all over the table.

"Time to go, Lily!" Guinevere sang out annoyingly.

"But I haven't eaten any—" I started before Clarissa and Guinevere took both of my arms and led me away.

First class was Transfiguration. McGonagall started off by scaring everybody half to death when she lectured us about our N.E.W.T.S. and how they would affect our entire lives. Then she told us to take notes as she started yet another lecture on a new, complicated spell we were doing.

I tired to take notes. I really did. But I kept accidentally writing on the table, and I couldn't see what she was writing on the board. I ended up with a mess of black ink all over the paper and having no idea whatsoever how to do the spell she had taught us. Then she put us in pairs. That evil witch. I'm sure you know who I got partnered up with. It's just so typical that I got partnered up with the one particular person I did not want to be partnered up with.

"Potter, do not say anything about last night. Do not think about last night. Do not tell my friends about last night. Do not tell my enemies about last night. Just forget about it and never ever bring it up ever, ever again," I told him sternly before my partner even had a chance to open his mouth. He looked at me—or at least I think he did, I still can't see—and then completely changed the topic.

"So, do you want to try the spell first or should I?" he asked.

"Go ahead," I grumbled.

"Oh, but it really should be ladies first," he said, grinning at me. I sighed. Of course this was probably just some evil plan of Potter's to embarrass me

"I really don't think I want to follow that rule today. Go ahead." I actually said it in what I thought was a polite, convincing voice. But apparently Potter wasn't fooled by my tactics.

"No, really, I insist."

That guy is so frustrating. And I don't even know the spell. I will have to try another tactic, something not so polite.

"No, you go," I snapped.

"Ladies first."

"No."

"Yes."

"No."

"It's only polite."

"No."

"What, you afraid?"

"I most certainly am not afraid!" I told him indignantly.

"Prove it."

"I don't need to prove it!"

"Do you not know the spell?" he asked curiously.

"Of course I know the spell!" I yelled indignantly.

"Prove it." Wow, what a creative line, James. Honestly, I was surprised he could say anything because he was smirking so hard.

I glared at him. It was a hard decision.

I took out my wand.

Stupid thing to do. Glancing sideways, I saw the rest of the class pointing their wands at their partners' heads and muttering something. _But what was the spell? And why the heck were they pointing wands at each others heads? _Seventh year sucks.

_OK Lily, you can do this! Just point the wand at Potter's head and say the incantation that you don't know in order to do something to it that you're not completely sure of! _Brilliant. I picked up the wand and pointed it at his head. And then I put it down.

My poor, poor pride will be damaged forever.

"I don't know the spell," I muttered darkly under my breath.

"What was that?" James asked excitedly. Damn him, I know he heard it.

"I don't know the spell," I said slight louder.

"What?"

"I don't know it!"

"What?"

"I. Don't. Know. It."

"What?"

"I DON"T KNOW IT, POTTER!" I screamed. The whole class stared at me. Smooth Lily, real smooth. I sunk deep into my chair and again started appealing to the Bat God, but this time I asked for wings instead of sonar so I could fly far away from the big, bad room of embarrassment.

Potter looked at me, grinning slightly, "Well, then, let me teach you."

"I don't need your help," I spat.

"Fine." He pointed the wand at my head instead, and I screamed as I saw the tips of my hair turn black.

"WHAT DID YOU DO TO ME?!"

"Is there a problem, Miss Evans?" The chief sadist of the torture chamber had arrived at last.

"Professor McGonagall, he just ruined my hair!" That old witch just sighed.

"That's what he was supposed to do. Were you paying attention to the lecture at all?"

"Ye—"

"Obviously not. This is seventh year, Ms. Evans, not first! If you are unable to do something as simple as listen to directions, then I can assure you that you will not make it very far in this world!" And with that last disgustingly strict comment she stomped away. I _was _paying attention. I just couldn't see anything! All she did was write the spell on the board, and it was nonverbal!

But that Potter creature just grinned at me.

"Sure you don't need someone to help you around today, Evans? You're gonna flunk all your classes at this rate

"No."

But two classes, a couple of full face-on-ground trips, three teachers' lectures and embarassments later, I decided that I was going to have to allow my pride to be ruined. My next class was Arithmancy. I hated Arithmancy. Lasy year I flunked Arithmancy. The teacher has something against me, I think! And Potter happened to be in that class, the only other seventh year Gryffindor who was. Everyone else had been smart enough to drop out.

"Uh, Potter," I mumbled when we were leaving an especially awful Charms class and my friends had very kindly left me alone with him.

"Yes, Darling!" I clenched my teeth. How. Dare. He. Call. Me. Darling.

"About your offer, uh, well you see, um, I—"

"You would like me to assist you?" he asked delightedly. I nodded my head, feeling as if I were signing my own death warrant. He grinned, took my arm like some old-fashioned gentleman would do, slung my bag over his shoulder, and started leading me through the halls.

I could practically feel the stares burning into me. _Was Lily Evans really hanging on James Potter's arm?_

This was so embarrassing.

But what choice did I have? I can tell you that my pride was currently screaming and thrashing and asking my brain if I was insane. Yes, I probably am insane.

But better insane then flunking Arithmancy!


	6. Chapter 6

Life is not going well. Death is not going well. The place between life and death is not going well, either. Not that I know what the last two are like, but I imagine they are suffering just as much pain as I am.

I am currently in Arithmancy class. Professor Le Fond is busy screeching away at the chalkboard. I think you would like to know that Professor Le Fond is French and has a French name. His last name translates directly to 'bottom.' Yes, Bottom. As in backside, buttocks, butt, and arse. I am not joking. Now, I could be nice and think of his last name in its other meaning, which would be the type of meaning in the sentence 'he drank to the bottom of his firewhiskey bottle' or 'Lily Evans' patience has reached the bottom of its limit.' But I am not a nice person, and I have no intention of becoming one. Professor Le Fond will always be Professor Butt to me. I'm so mean.  
Professor Butt is now screaming at the class about numbers and how if you do 'blah' to 'blah' and get 'blah' it will somehow save the universe, or something like that anyway. Professor Butt is an odd fellow.

I decide to zone out and set my time and energy to a much more profitable task, such as staring out the window and guessing how bad my punishment would be if I suddenly decided to jump out into the open sunshine and escape this awful place. I think I'd probably make Professor Butt pretty mad. I can't see McGonagall being too excited about that either. Oh well.

Oh no, that Potter creature just poked me.

"Psssssssst, Lily!" Maybe if I ignore him he'll go away. However I did ask for his help and that would be rather cruel of me. I may be mean, but I'm not heartless.  
"What, Potter," I hiss, sounding like a snake. I like snakes; I am proud to be able to hiss like one.  
"Here's a copy of the notes," he says, before shoving some unidentifiable papers into my arms.  
"Um, thanks," I mumbleI guess I'm a bit surprised, that was a little bit nice of him. But only a very little.  
Professor Butt continues to scream and I continue to plan how I can escape through the window. We are on the third floor. Is it possible to land on your feet and still live from jumping from that level? Maybe if I was a cat it would work; cats always land on their feet, or so I've been told. But I happen to not be a cat, so that would be rather difficult for me.

"Miss Evans!" Professor Butt is now screeching at me. How very inconsiderate of him. "Were you paying attention at all?!" Um, no. "I just asked you about the Plythamenum Theory of Mathematical Magic. Can you give the class a definition please!" Not good. Why in the world would he think that I, Lily Evans, would know what the heck the Plythamenum Theory of Mathematical Magic was?  
"Well, um, you see, it was this, uh, thing, where this one guy, um—" Smooth Lily, real smooth. At this point Potter coughs something that sounds something like: "notes!"  
Ah, right. Looking down, I very sneakily glance at the theory. I clear my throat.  
"The Plythamenum Theory of Mathematical Magic states that because of magic's, um, magical properties, um, all curses under, the um, the Slantinun category, have the root of, um, the number, uh, 13.5, because of their connection, with uh, with the Slatinun category, um yeah." Well I believe that little speech deserves an 'Exceeds Expectations' at least.

"Pitiful, Miss Evans, pitiful," Professor Butt is speaking to me again. "You are speaking of Lythander's theory of mathematical dark spells. If you cannot pay attention in class, then we will make time out of class for you to do so. Detention tomorrow at eight." That monster. Do you realize how completely unfair it is to give someone a detention for getting an answer wrong? I wish I could blame Potter, but I just looked at the paper and it turns out I was mistaken and said the wrong subtitle. Professor Butt walks away. He looks like a giant cockroach, a huge disgusting cockroach that I would feel no better pleasure than to smash. I wish I could smash Professor Butt, he deserves it. I somehow manage to make a complete fool of myself for the rest of the class period. Blame Potter! He was supposed to be helping me! But admittedly he had written very clear notes and was constantly clearing his throat and coughing while he hinted the answer to the point where Professor Butt gave him detention, too. Tomorrow night. With me, joy.

"Good job, Potter," I spit out sarcastically after class. "Yes, thank you so much for all your help." He stares at me miserably.  
"I was trying, I really was! How come you didn't understand the notes?"  
"Hmmm, let's think Potter...why do you think I needed your help in the first place? Because I can't see! So why in the world would you imagine that I would be able to decipher all your notes when Professor Butt is firing stupid questions at me?!"  
"Professor Butt?" he asks.  
"Didn't you know that 'Le Fond' translates to 'butt' in English?"  
"It does?"  
"Yes, it does," I say superiorly, I'm quite proud to know something he doesn't. For once.  
"And now," I start to continue my rant on How Everything is Potter's Fault, "you've landed yourself in detention with me which about makes my detention ten times worse. Did you honestly think he wouldn't understand the constant coughing that was very illy concealed to sound like answers? I mean, please, Professor Butt isn't that stupid!" He stares at me with that wounded puppy dog expression and I admit I feel a little bit sorry for him. But only a very teeny, tiny, insignificant bit.  
"I'm sorry Lily, I tried, I really did," James states, miserably staring at the floor. Ouch, he looks so pathetic, so pitiful, I admit I feel sorry for him. Maybe more then a little bit.  
"It's okay, Potter." Am I really doing this? Something must be wrong with me. "You did good."  
"I did?" he asks hopefully.  
"Yes. You did." Ugh, I hate being nice to Potter, but if you had seen his expression you would do the same thing! "Care to escort me to dinner?" Did I really just say that? I'm going crazy.  
"I would love to!" And with that we head off to dinner. Fortunately my friends—or at least the people who used to be my friends, not so sure now—sit with us. Unfortunately, Potter's ridiculous Monkey People join us too.  
"Ladies, your stunning beauty astounds even me! How could someone so beautiful be sitting without a man by her side?" And with that Sirius Black plops himself down in between Clarissa and Guinevere.  
And they giggle. 

They giggle.

Giggle.

What?

Have my friends gone insane? 'Giggle' and 'Sirius' have never gone together nor will they ever go together. I gape at them for a full minute.

Giggle.

They giggled. I'm sorry; I'm finding it hard to get past that.

After dinner I race off towards the owlery. Well, not race exactly, more like walk with my hands up, and tip-toe into the room. I hate owls. They are nasty, freaky creatures that can tear you in half in a second with their fierce talons and sharp beaks. Why, I'm surprised they aren't used as murder devices!

"Come over here, beast! I shout at the nearest one. Jeez, there's no wonder owls don't like me; I'm not exactly nice to them, am I? The little beast flaps over to me and I quickly write the following onto a piece of paper:  
Send my contacts. Now. Love Lily.

I like it, easy to understand and straight to the point. I tie the note onto the owl's leg and it flies as fast away from me as it possibly can with while lugging around those awful talons. I walk all the way to Gryffindor tower, only managing to knock into walls a few times, mutter the password, and headed up to my dormitory. Entering the bathroom, I start to brush my teeth when I notice them.

They are sitting right there.

They are mocking me, teasing me. I can see them laughing at me with their translucent selves howling at my foolish stupidity. I swear I'm doomed to be an idiot my entire life.

My contacts are on the counter.

Apparently, they've been there the whole time. They'vebeen sitting comfortably up here while I was being tortured by Professor Butt and the Potter creature.

"STUPID CONTACTS!" I roar out before picking up the bright green case that holds them and flinging it out of the bathroom as hard as I can. I now realize my mistake and spend the next half hour trying to find them all over again. They're under Guinevere's bed. I would have found them sooner but it was nearly impossible with Guinevere's junk lying all over the place underneath her bed. How could she possibly be this messy so early in the year? But then again, I'm not much better, what with my little rampage this morning and all.  
I shove the contacts in. It feels amazing. I can actually see, it's a miracle. I have the power! I am invincible! I will take over the world!

Okay, maybe that's a bit of an overstatement, but it sure feels great to not have to look in the mirror and see a red blur anymore.

I then walk over to the window so I can actually see the great outdoors and the beautiful lake and—

Everything's spinning. I feel like I'm collapsing in on myself, completely freezing up. I hear someone screaming, I think it's me, but I'm not certain. The drop down the window seems to be getting longer and longer, and I can't move. Suddenly everything goes black. 

"LILY! WAKE UP ALREADY!" Yikes, okay, I'm awake. Thank you for waking me up so kindly.  
"What happened," I grumbled, staring up into Valerie's face.  
"Not sure, it was kinda weird actually. You just walked over to the window, looked outside, and completely flipped out. I didn't know you were afraid of heights." She says this all in a nonchalant voice, as if it didn't matter that I am currently hyperventilating.  
"I am not afraid of heights!" I shout, but I know that I am. Just the thought of going out there on the roof now completely freaks me out. She grins at me. Valerie knows me too well; I'm now afraid of heights.  
"So when did you get this new fear?" she asks. Hmmmm, when did I get it? That's pretty obvious, apparently falling off a roof has a few side effects. This is not good.  
"Umm, I don't know."  
"You're hiding something, I know it."  
"I'm hiding nothing!" And with that I stomp into bed without even changing. Changing would involve getting my pajamas; my pajamas are by the window. I cannot go by the window because the curtains are not closed and I still have enough pride to know that I cannot ask Valerie to close them for me, I would never be able to face her again.  
I wonder how I'm gonna play on the Quidditch team now?

Author's Notes: Guys, i"m not asking you to review. See i am writing an Author's note without asking you guys to review. i am thinking it though. But i'm trying to gte on your goodside by not annoying you with asking for feedback. See, i'm not asking. hint HINT


	7. Chapter 7

My friends happen to have this crazy tradition called The Second Day Makeover. The name itself infects every sane human with a mixture of pain and hopelessness. But, sadly, I have suffered from this so-called Makeover, or as I like to call it, Day of My Doom, for the past seven years of going to this school.

Yes, the seventh Day of My Doom.

Why, you may ask, is this day such a tragedy? Well, I will tell you. It is not a day of doom, it is the dawn of doom. My friends all wake up excitedly squealing at around four o'clock in the morning each time the Second Day comes around. They then proceed to jump on my bed, yell, throw water on me, yell some more, make loud obnoxious noises with their wands, yell, and generally do other things to wake me up.

Unfortunately, their methods work quite nicely.

Once I am good and awake, the torture begins. The next four hours are dedicated to making us the Most Gorgeous-est Girls on the Planet.

"LILY! OOOOO-OOOOOHHHHH, LILY!"  
Go away, you evil creatures of doom! Begone with you!

"LILYLILYLILYLILYLILYLILYLLILYLILYLILYLILYLILYLILYLILY!"  
Leave me ALONEALONEALONEALONEALONEALONE!

"OOOOOOOOO-OHHHHHHHHH LILY! OH-OH-OH, YEAH, LILY! OH-OH-OH, YEAH! LILY!"  
Please stop singing.

"OH-OH-OH, LILY! TIME FOR MAKEOVERS! GET UP! GET UP! GET-GET-GET-GET, GET UP!"  
Fine, I'm up, you noisy beasts of death.

I roll out of bed, my tangled sheets coming down with me. My friends are all yelling and dancing around the room still singing "lily, oh-oh-oh-oh, LILY! Oh-oh-oh-oh, YEAH!" They really need to shut up now.

"I'm up already, now will you PLEASE stop singing!" "LILY! YOU'RE AWAKE!" No, really? How observant. They quickly dance around and yank me to the long row of chairs, tables, and mirrors they have set up.  
On the table is laid a mixed array of torture devices. There are eyebrow-pluckers, face masks, cucumbers, scissors, eye-shadows, foundations, lipsticks, lipglosses, lip liners, eyeliners, Miss Lena's Zit Remover, thickening mascaras, lengthening mascaras, clear mascaras, eyelash curlers, eyelash brushes, combs, hair sprays, Magical Hair Thickener, hair scrunchies, hair clips, butterfly hairclips, hair gels, shampoos, Dr. Shwarts Toenail Fungus Disinfectant conditioners, lotions, perfumes, a knife (no idea why that would be there), nail polish, nail polish remover, and many other numerous objects designed to beautify.

Now, you are probably wondering why we do this on the second day of school. Well, there is no good reason except that they would do it on the first day if there was any possible way to get me out of bed that early on the first day back from summer vacation.

"LILY! Go take a shower!" Clarissa chants at me, already in a state of frenzied excitement at the thought of possibly being allowed to beautify for four hours.  
"SHOWERSHOWERSHOWERSHOWERSHOWERSHOWER!" the rest of her followers chant. I swear it's like some makeover tribe around here. I am then shoved in the shower. (The rest of them have already bathed before I got up, meaning they all got up at around three.) Clarissa then throws seven different types of shampoos at me one at a time, yelling at me to use them or to die. No joke. Then she starts throwing conditioners and soaps. The first soap is really rough –like sand—and smells like poop. Then I get a soft, good-smelling soap, then Lavender Liquid Soap, and then finally I am allowed to escape. Smelling of flowers, I throw on a robe and twist my hair up in Guinevere's neon orange towel.  
"LILY!" they all shout as I come into the room. Yes it's me. I know, exciting. Could they be any more annoying? Valerie immediately shoves me into a chair (these girls are all so demanding) and starts rubbing a bright green face mask on me. I never got the point of a face mask. All it is is a bright green thing that you have to pay about a gazillion dollars for. But man, does it hurt. It feels like some invisible hand is squeezing my face. But the cucumber slices that are over my eyes are just as bad. They sting, and it feels like the Cucumber God is peeing in my eye. I pull off one of the cucumbers and—  
"LILY! PUT YOUR CUCUMBER BACK ON!" Clarissa, who apparently woke up especially early and has already done this, is staring at us four like a dementor watching her convicts. She points her finger and screeches until I pull the awful cucumber slice back on. Ten minutes later and they're still on.  
"Can we PLEASE take these off now?!" I beg.  
"Lily!" Sybil hisses at me, "you are disturbing and disrupting the connection you could be having with the forces of nature at this early hour! Please be quiet and respect the needs of the rest of us who actually enjoy out connection with The Great Ones." Okay, didn't understand a word of that Sybil, but whatever.

It's another ten minutes before Clarissa lets us take the wretched things off.

"Careful ladies! Your skin is delicate and must be treated delicately! Gently rub off your face mask with a warm washcloth." Clarissa smiles at us all. I'm sure she's enjoying this.  
Guinevere, Valerie and Sybil might be patient enough to gently rub something off, but I certainly am not. I grab the wash cloth and start scrubbing the disgusting goop off my poor face. There is no way I'm keeping this crap on me for any longer.

It won't come off.

I'm seriously scrubbing as hard as I can, but it stays determinedly on.

"CLARISSA!" I screech, "THIS ISN"T COMING OFF!"  
"Well, are you scrubbing gently with a warm washcloth?" Of course I am! Not. She takes the washcloth from my hands and starts scrubbing more softly After a few minutes, I feel her scrub a little harder. She's frowning now, mumbling under her breath. A little while later and she's scrubbing so hard I swear she's gonna rip my face off. Guinevere comes over, grabs another washcloth, and starts scrubbing too.  
It still doesn't come off.

In a matter of minutes all four of them are scrubbing as hard as they can with boiling water and the worst smelling soap I have ever had the misfortune to smell.  
It's. Not. Coming. Off.

I think I am doomed. Doomed forever to have green gloop pasted on my face. I will be known as Green Gloop Woman and everyone will throw mud at my gloopy face, making it even gloopier.

"DON"T CALL ME GREEN GLOOP WOMAN!" I yell suddenly. Huh, smart.  
"Uh darling, we're not calling you anything," Valerie says soothingly.  
"You're scrubbing my face off," I mutter.

It has now been three hours of scrubbing and I am still Green Gloop Woman. Clarissa finally gets it into her head to look at the single package I used. (Guinevere was out of the stuff the rest of them used). Suddenly, she gasps and gives me a worried look. This doesn't sound good.

"Um, Lily Honey? Well, I, um, kinda forgot to look at the package before we put this on you, and um, well, the good news is that you'll have perfect skin by the end of this, the bad news is that this doesn't come off for twenty-four hours." Um, what?!  
"Um, WHAT?" I scream, "WHAT DO YOU MEAN IT WON"T COME OFF FOR TWENTY-FOUR HOURS?! DO YOU EXPECT ME TO GO AROUND LIKE THIS ALL DAY?!"  
"Uh, sorry?" she says hesitantly. Huh, not gonna cut it hun. I give one last frustrated scream and then proceed to pull on my robes and shove my hair into a messy bun. I look like a Christmas tree. All four of them stare at me with worried looks on their faces.  
"Maybe, you could skip?" Guinevere suggests casually. Yes, brilliant suggestion. Except for the fact that McGonagall would find me and kill me. It's not like Guinevere ever has to worry about this kind of thing. I swear that girl has the best luck in the world. She also has the coolest hair in the world. It's dirty blonde and goes all the way down to her bum. Every three months she spends one hundred Galleons getting salon people to put her hair in dreadlocks for her. Some people can spend all the money they want. I'm not one of them. But even if she was unlucky and had to parade around all day in a green face mask, she probably wouldn't care. Like Valerie, she doesn't really care what people thing of her. Slightly over-weight and with rainbow braces (not that she needs them, she only wears them because she thinks they look cool), Guinevere probably isn't the ideal of beauty. But she's definitely different.  
"Huh, like that would work. McGonagall would fry me alive." What a stupid idea.  
"I really don't know why you're so upset about this, Lily. It shouldn't matter to you what other people think about you! You really need to just suck it up, and take it like a man!" says Valerie angrily.  
"But I'm not a man." Thank God.  
"That's the wrong type of attitude Lily! I hope you'll rethink that comment! Women are always putting themselves below men! Society is always saying that women are weaker and need men to be their strong defenders! But WE ARE NOT WEAK! We are strong, free-thinking individuals, and we deserve just as much respect as men!" Didn't realize this was gonna turn into another one of her feminist debates.  
"Valerie, I was saying that in a pro-feminist way. I do not want to take it like a man because men are the lesser sex. They are stupid, egotistical individuals who need to open their eyes and see that they are not the rulers of the universe. I do not want to act like a man because I would then be degrading myself!" What? I never said I wasn't a feminist.  
Valerie looks at me proudly. We are the United Feminists of Hogwarts, designed to vanquish evil in the form of the male species.

"That's quite right, Lily. Good job, I'm glad you're taking that side."  
"Me, too. Men should die." Well most of them, anyway. Clarissa, Sybil and Guinevere are all rolling their eyes at us. Don't know what their problem is.  
"I don't know what the point of having a woman's rights discussion was, but we need to get back to the subject at hand," Clarissa states in her I-am-the-queen-of-the-universe-and-know-everything voice.  
"You could wear a mask," Guinevere suggests.  
"NO! absolutely positively not! I forbid it! You must not hide your face from the Spirits and Forces of Goodness, you must rise up and accept their gently calling!" Sybil is being her usual strange self. She always manages to relate everything to the Spirits or whatever.  
"I think we should all wear masks. I believe that we should be seen for our inner beauty, not our pathetic outer selves!" Thank you, Valerie.  
"There is absolutely no way that I'm going to be wearing a mask!" Sybil yells, pointing her finger to the sky and looking like one of those war goddesses. Sybil is super skinny and has super frizzy brown hair that goes all the way down her back. When she's yelling (like now) her hair seems to get even frizzier, as if someone had shot a lightning bolt through her. Sybil also happens to think that our prank war is stupid. But she thinks practically everything is stupid.  
"Everyone needs to calm down. This is Lily's problem, not ours. I think the rest of us should get ready. We will continue our make-over tomorrow," Clarissa states.  
"WHAT? I wouldn't be having this problem in the first place if it wasn't for YOU! How dare you not help me!"  
"I'm sure you'll manage to solve your problems by yourself." And with that she smirks, grabs her bag, and heads out the door. The others stare at me hopelessly.  
"I'm sorry Lily, I really don't know what else we can do," Guinevere says. I can tell she's trying really hard not to laugh.  
"It's only twenty-four hours, I'm sure you'll be fine," Sybil states, looking at me as if I'm  
some pathetic bug that has no means of understanding her. Valerie just smiles at me. She's not even pretending that she's not enjoying this. Evil girls.  
They all grab their bags and follow Clarissa downstairs, leaving me–Green Gloop Woman—all by her lonesome self.

Green Gloop Woman is not going to have a good day.


	8. Chapter 8

I'm sure somebody up there is laughing his head off at me. Not that I would blame him, everybody is laughing their heads off at me.  
Stupid People.  
There they sit, surrounding me in the Great Hall, pointing and laughing and staring as if I've suddenly sprouted antlers. But now that I think of it, I would prefer antlers. Jenny Manton was cursed into antlers in our third year and everyone was really nice and sympathetic about it. But I guess that was because Jenny is probably the nicest (aka, dumbest) person I have ever met in my life.  
But no, when Lily Evans gets a cursed face mask everyone think it's the funniest thing they ever did see. I swear, even McGonagall cracked a smile upon seeing my face.  
It's quite hard to eat, actually. Everyone probably thinks I look like some green monster devouring her prey. I wish I was a green monster. Then I could eat all of these stupid people who dare laugh at me.  
"Hey Evans, looking beautiful as alwa—" I turn around and Potter stops talking. He looks at me in shock., and then in one brief moment before I can think of something really snappy to say, he bursts out laughing, as do his Gorilla People behind him.  
Prats.  
Stupid, egotistical, maniacal prats.  
And then Guinevere and Clarissa start laughing.  
TRAITORS! Filthy traitors! How could this possibly happen to me?!  
"Lily had a bit of an—" Clarissa leans in really close to Sirius (probably so he can look down her shirt at her abnormally large cup size) "—accident."  
__

_Ah, that's why. Trying to get in with Sirius Black, are we?_  
I am ashamed of her. I should tell her so.  
"I am ashamed of you," I state gravely. Clarissa looks at me as if I'm some deranged slug.  
"I am not a slug, Clarissa," I give her a stern look. She gives me an I-am-so-embarrassed-please-go-jump-off-a-cliff look  
"I never said you were a slug."

"Oh, but you were thinking it." Clarissa shakes her head at me, as if I'm humiliating her. _This was all your fault in the first place, honey!_  
"Would you boys like to sit with us?" Guinevere asks, while fingering Sirius's tie. I don't know why she's doing that. He probably uses it for disgusting purposes such as blowing his nose, wiping his arse, etc.  
"Certainly!" Potter exclaims, plunking himself down between me and Clarissa. Sirius sits between Clarissa and Guinevere. Peter and Remus start up [a conversation with my other two friends/traitors.  
"How are you doing today, Lily?" Potter asks. _Oh, simply splendid!_  
"Oh, simply splendid!"  
"Really?"  
"Of course not. Are you completely incapable of recognizing sarcasm? Have you looked at my face? I am Green Gloop Woman. And my friends are traitors," I add as an afterthought.  
"How are your friends traitors?"  
"Have you looked at them?" Guinevere was feeding Sirius bits of egg from her fork. Ewwwwww!  
"I see your point."  
"And they invited you over here, which is almost as bad."  
"Almost," he agrees. Wait, why did he agree? Isn't he supposed to spout some speech about how amazing he is or something like that? "So why is all that stuff on you?"  
"Ask your friend over there. You know, the one your best mate is kissing. They just ate, you know. How revolting. You should tell him to stop doing that, he's making me feel nauseous." Revolting is not the word for it. It is so utterly disgusting that I am beyond speech. Clarissa is slowly oozing away from my good side. Guinevere (who Sirius is not making out with) looks like she's about to burst out crying as she watches them go at it. That girl needs to get a grip. Crying over Sirius Black? Pathetic, absolutely pathetic.  
"No really, why do you look like that?" prompted James happily.  
"The Traitor gave me a face mask that lasts for twenty-four hours."  
"That was mean of her," he says.  
"Yes, it was. She should've at least checked the instructions before giving her best friend that junk."  
"She should've," he agrees again. I don't know why he's being so amiable today. Its kind of nice talking to him, actually.  
Wait, NO! I didn't mean it! I refuse to mean it! This can't be happening to me.  
It's not happening to me. I hate him, I hatehatehatehatehatehate hate him. Evil git.  
I stare moodily at my toast. And then I realize something. Something very important. How did I not notice it before?  
"We're out of raspberry jelly!" I yell suddenly, waving the piece of toast around in front of his face.  
"Oh my gosh, you're right! I'll go get some." He races off to the Hufflepuff table and takes a jar from right under some blonde girl's nose. He places it in front of me.  
"Got it," he gasps out.  
"Thank you," I tell him in a semi-nice voice. I spread it over my toast. I love toast. I love bread. Bread is delicious and can be eaten in many different enjoyable ways, including, but not limited to: spread with chocolate, covered in peanut butter, with marshmallows melted on top, with cheese and pepper, with apple butter, and with more bread.  
Potter is staring at me.  
Yes, staring at me. He looks like a very stupid worm. I don't really understand how he manages to look like a worm, but let me assure you, he does. A very stupid worm. A very stupid, very happy worm.  
I don't like happy people.  
Well actually I don't like happy morning people. I am not a morning person. Mornings are for happy chirping birds, not me.  
But you see, Potter looks more than stupidly happy. He looks stupidly ecstatic, joyful, exhilarated. A stupid, ecstatic, exhilarated, happy worm.  
"Why are you so worm-like this morning?"  
"Worm-like?"  
"Happy," I explain.  
"Because I have managed to talk to you for a whole five minutes!" Oh yes, surely a case for celebration. Not.  
"Yes, well, it was all a mistake, you should forget about it. I assure you it won't happen again." I'm glad we cleared that up. Sybill suddenly stands up.  
"The fates from beyond have mentioned to me upon their river of leaving that the hour of the beginning of a new leaf is drawn near. I must depart," Sybill states in a mystical voice.  
"English, please, Sybill," Clarissa says.  
"It's time for class."  
"Ah! So it is! Let's get going then." And with that last comment, Guinevere practically drags Clarissa away from Sirius. Not that Sirius seems to care, there are plenty of girls to feed him eggs around here. Freak.  
"Lily, aren't you comin'?" asks Valerie.  
"Valerie, I thought you, of all people, would understand the importance of finishing one's toast," I tell her.  
"But of course. Take all the time you need. I'll meet you at Millbank's."  
"MILLBANKS?!" I scream. How could this be possible?  
"Yes Lily, Millbank's. Divination. Didn't you look at the schedule?"  
"Why would I do that?"  
"Because—" I have no time for her petty speech.  
"I cannot possibly go to Divination, I think I might die if I do!"  
"What is possibly this bad about Millbank's class?"  
"She will eat me," I tell her, pointing a spoon at Guinevere.  
"Why would she eat you?" Potter suddenly has joined our conversation. Joy.  
"Because she is the Evil Cow and that is what she does," I tell him.  
"The Evil Cow?" he asks curiously.  
"Yes, the Evil Cow. Do you have a problem with that?"  
"Uh, no," he says meekly.  
"Lily, please, it really is time for class," Guinevere says, pulling on my arm.  
"NOOOOOOOO!"  
"YEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSS!"  
"NO!"  
"YES!"  
"NO!"  
"YE—"  
"WOULD YOU SHUT UP ALREADY?" Potter yells, putting a hand over each of our mouths. I bite his finger.  
"I most certainly will not be shutting up, Potter!" I spit out.  
Well, we finally manage to get out of the Great Hall and all the way up to the highest room of the tallest tower. Gosh, I feel like Rapunzel.  
I have arrived at the Awful Room of Rapunzel's Death. Yes, Rapunzel's death. Because I can assure you that if Rapunzel ever was or will be in this room, the Evil Cow has or will kill her. Or eat her. Depending on her mood. Poor Rapunzel.  
But I am afraid I don't have much pity for her at the moment. My pity is focused completely on myself.  
"Good morning, Darlings!" That would be Madame Millbank. What a stupid name. "Today we will be reading tea leaves," she says, smiling at us as if she just announced that we have all become billionaires.  
Let me put this in perspective; I would rather dissect cockroaches for the rest of my life then read tea leaves.  
"Please pair up," she says, smiling so hard her mouth probably hurts. I end up with Sybill. Lucky me.  
"Lily! Oh no….My Darling, I'm so, so sorry… I don't know how to say this…" Sybill stares at me with wide eyes, clutching my teacup in her hands. "Your life force… it's…" she stops here for the dramatic affect, "fading."  
Oh, I'm so scared.  
That was said in a sarcastic tone of voice, just in case you are like Potter and incapable of interpreting human emotions.  
"My life force is fading?"  
"Yes. I'm so sorry." Her big brown eyes fill with ears. But I know they're fake. I can see her trying to hide a smile. Evil girl.  
"When will it have faded completely?" I ask in a completely bored voice.  
"I'm sorry to say, that the absolute maximum you have to live is five years."  
Darn.  
"Thank you, Sybill, for that beautiful prediction. My turn." I grab the teacup from her hands and stare into it. "Oh no! Sybill, I'm so sorry, I never thought it would come to this!"  
"What is it?! What is it?!" she asks, looking vaguely how Potter would if I agreed to go out with him.  
"I don't know if I should tell you…."  
"Tell me!"  
"It could affect your life forever…."  
"Please tell me, Lily! Please!"

I take a deep breath. "All right."  
She stares at me excitedly with wide eyes, practically on the edge of her rocking chair (which is what the Evil Cow makes us sit on).  
"You will… I'm so sorry… you will soon feel the sudden urge to find yourself. You will travel the globe, and then…"  
"And then what?"  
"You will see that in fact your true calling in life is to toilet train purple giraffes. You will become obsessed with them and will soon tattoo yourself to look like a purple giraffe. Then you will go to a wolf pack and attempt to marry the Alpha Male. Unfortunately, that is quite illegal, and you will be sent to live in an ant hill for the rest of you life. Again, I am so sorry."  
"LILY!"  
"Yes?"  
"A real prediction will be greatly appreciated! You should not make fun of the wonderful art of prognostication! Of prophesizing the after life! Of giving warning to the damned! This is a noble profession which you have no business in!"  
"Sybill, if you can't accept that you're gonna fall in love with a wolf, I suggest you go complain to a shrink, not me—"  
"LILY! I can't believe this of you! I always thought you were different! That you would understand—"  
"Don't worry, I have and always will understand your fondness for hairy beasts that walk on four legs—"  
"LILY!"  
"Yes?"  
I admit I enjoy torturing her sometimes. Maybe Divination isn't so bad after all. 

**Author's Notes: I have a teacher i call the Evil Cow, not to her face, but i do call her that. but that's only because she's evil.**  
please review, reviews make me smile. :)


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9 -

The answer to my prayers is sitting in front me. I can see it, the object I have been staring at for the past three minutes at a loss for words. It is amazing, it is beautiful, it is the answer to everything, it is my savior!

It is a note.

A note of extreme and infinite importance. A note that already is changing my entire outlook on life, the world and the entire human species. A note that will soon make me, Lily Evans, the freak who only yesterday paraded around in a face mask, the happiest girl on the planet. The Note consists of seven words, seven beautiful, heart-thumping, tear-jerking, world-saving words:

_Lily, will you go out with me?_

But even better than The Note, is the giver. This note was not sent from the infamous King of the Gorilla People, but by a real live human being. (No, Potter is not a human being. He is a prat, a devilish, conniving monstrosity.) The note was sent by Devon Marks.

Devon Marks. Lily Marks. Mrs. Lily Marks.

I, the future Mrs. Marks, was sitting in Transfiguration, staring into space, paying no attention to the lesson, surrounded by Gorilla People, and Potter, when The Note came flying onto my desk. I looked up and saw that the thrower happened to be the dreamy, blond Ravenclaw from across the room. The note was on regular parchment, with my name scribbled across the front. I opened it, gaped, and screamed.

Yes, screamed.

Obviously the whole class turned around to stare at me.

"Oh, um, sorry, thought I saw, an, um, a, a hummingbird outside!"

"A hummingbird?" asked McGonagall in a skeptical voice.

"Uh, yes, a hummingbird. I'm allergic to hummingbird bites."

"Miss Evans, hummingbirds don't bite."

"How do you know?"

"Because it's a researched fact, Miss Evans. You cannot possibly be allergic to hummingbirds."

"Oh. Well that's a relief then, isn't it?" She gives me a perplexed look.

"Please do not interrupt class with pointless screams about nonexistent events ever again Miss Evans," she states, before turning back to the class and continuing on with the lesson I had been paying absolutely no attention to.

And that's where this chapter started. I am stunned. Completely and utterly stunned. Shocked. In a state of utter disbelief. Let me introduce you to Devon Marks.

He is gorgeous. Tall, muscular, dirty blond hair to about his chin, blue eyes, perfect skin, broad shouldered, perfect. Not only is he a star on the Ravenclaw Quidditch team, he is a good (well, good enough anyway) student. He's nice, plays guitar, is every girl's heartthrob, and was my crush until fourth year when Potter decided he liked me, scared off every other guy, and I completely gave up.

But, no! There was no need for the future Mrs. Marks to give up, for only three years later I am being asked out by the hottest guy in school.

I think I may faint.

But at this very moment, Potter—who had forced his presence beside me—rips the note from my hand and proceeds to read it.

"Potter, give it back!" I hissed at him angrily. He stares at it, obviously just as shocked as I was and starts to rip it to shreds. How dare he!

"How dare you!" I say as loudly as I dare.

"He has no business asking you out!" he furiously.

"He has as much right as anyone else to ask me out and much more right than you, Potter!" I snap back. He stares at me, looking hurt.

"Don't go out with him, Lily. He's not good enough for you!"

"And you are?!" I shoot right back. He pauses.

"No. But at least I realize that." I admit, that last comment got to me a little. I stop for a second before talking again.

"I'm sorry, Potter, but this is none of your business." And right in front of his hopeless eyes, I take out a piece a paper, write a great big _YES_ with lots of exclamation points. When I attempt to send it back to my future husband, Potter leaps all the way across his desk, screaming at the top of his lungs, and attempts to take the paper from my hands.

"Potter. _Potter! _Stop it! _What are you doing?! _STOP IT!"

We some how end up on the floor, wrestling each other for the piece of paper.

"Evans, just. Give. Me. The. Paper!" he says between clenched teeth. He half lifts me up in an attempt to take the paper from my hands.

"STOP IT POTTER!" I scream, while yanking at his hair.

"WHAT IS GOING ON HERE?!" Oh. I forgot we are in a classroom. Tackling Potter on the floor screaming generally isn't classroom protocol.

But who cares about protocol?

We continue fighting to the yells of outrage from McGonagall and the laughs from Sirius Black and most of the class.

This is so embarrassing.

I am fighting over a piece of paper. With Potter. Why am I doing this? Oh yes, because I will be Mrs. Marks!

This fight is not going well. Mainly because Potter is a six foot tall Quidditch playing macho man (not that I care, he's still ugly), and I'm a five-foot-five, not exactly skinny, unmuscular twerp. But I still think I'm more attractive. As should everyone else.

And then I realize how stupid this is. Why am I fighting over a note when I can simply tell him? After all, it is humanly impossible to be any more embarrassed than I already am.

"DEVON, I WILL GO OUT WITH YOU!" I scream out suddenly. Potter stops trying to wrench the paper from my hands and looks up at me in shock. We stop fighting, McGonagall stops yelling, but Black doesn't stop laughing. Idiot. An embarrassed Potter gets off of me and finally lets go of the paper. He slouches over to my do you mean 'his'?seat as I get off the filthy floor.

McGonagall looks like she's about to blow up.

"_Detention!" _she manages to hiss out, "for a month. Both of you!" I start to protest but she puts a hand up and I decide not to push things. I look over at Devon, who is beaming at me, and Potter, who looks like he's going to murder someone. I have a very weird life.

After class Devon catches up to me.

"Hey," he says delightedly, grabbing my hand. "We both have Defense with Umbridge next, right?"

"Uh huh," I breath., staring at his great blue eyes. I am about to say something extremely intelligent and romantic when Potter's now icy voice cuts in.

"You know, a _good _boyfriend would take Lily's bag," he states, sneering at Devon. Devon looks at him, surprised.

"Uh…" he starts.

"It's fine Devon, don't worry about it."

"No Devon. Worry about it," Potter starts out." It's the actions that count, you know. Not those empty words of yours." He continues to glare at him. "_I, _for instance, would have taken her bag straight off."

"That's very nice, Potter. _Now__ sod off!" _I screech at him. Why does he always have to ruin everything? "Don't you have to go to class or something?"

"Lucky for you, I have Defense next, so I'll be able to keep an eye on this one," he says, giving Devon a dirty look. I give Potter my best Death glare and then turn to Devon.

"So, have you heard anything about this new Professor?"

"Yeah, some pretty dark stuff actually. Rumor is he works for Lord What's-his-face." Devon answers, glad not to be talking to Potter anymore.

"Lord Voldemort," Potter butts in, "his name is _Lord Voldemort. _I'd think you'd know that, being a nerd and all." I ignore his comment.

"Lord Voldemort?! But that can't be possible. I mean, Dumbledore would never let—"

"Him teach here?" Devon finishes for me.

"Yes," I said.

"Well, apparently it wasn't Dumbledore who hired him," Potter says suddenly, trying to engage my attention. I turn back to Devon.

"Than who—" This time Devon interrupts, glaring at Potter over my head. (They're both so tall!)

"Ministry of Magic."

"But why would they do that? I mean, if they even _suspected _he was a Death Eater they shouldn't let him within a hundred yards of the school—"

"You mean you haven't heard the rumors?" Potter jumps in, looking at Devon as if he would like nothing better than to smash him.

"What rumors?" I ask. I mean, I hate to be talking to Potter, but I really am curious.

"Well," Devon says loudly, cutting off Potter, "rumor has it that the Ministry isn't exactly as sound as it once was."

"You mean—"

"I mean," this time Potter cuts in, looking furious at having been interrupted by Devon, "Lord Voldemort is having a little more control there than the Wizarding community would like."

"But that's—"

"Horrible, I know." Devon suddenly says, actually pushing Potter aside as he leans in closer. "To be honest I can't believe you haven't heard about it yet. You Gryffindors…" he mutters, staring pointedly at Potter.

I'm quite shocked about this recent bit of news, actually. I mean, there have been some horrible things said of this Lord Voldemort guy, strange disappearances and murders, people waking up with everyone else is their homes dead, kidnappings, and stolen possessions. But I guess I always thought that it would all be all right. I mean, it _has _to be all right. But if he's already infiltrating the Ministry than there is something seriously wrong.

"I can't believe this," I say, at a loss for words and suddenly quite fearful about being instructed by this new professor.

"I know, it's awful isn't it?" Potter says, shoving Devon out of the way, "But don't worry, I'll protect you." He says this all in a very macho voice, putting an arm protectively over my shoulders.

"Over my dead body you will!" Devon throws Potter off me, puts an arm around my waist, and practically drags me away from Potter. Not that I'm complaining.

"Now how about this next Hogsmeade trip? Fancy going with me?" Devon says suavely, as if we haven't just had a horribly, terrifying conversation. I'm a little surprised by this sudden change of topic.

"Oh, how romantic!" Potter has caught up to us. "What a brilliant idea, Marks! How did you possibly think of something so creative for a first date?! I mean, Hogsmeade will just be so romantic, surrounded by people in a little booth with room temperature butterbeer, not being able to hear yourself talk, why, I'm sure you'll both really enjoy that!" he says sarcastically, looking at Devon as if he couldn't possibly get any dumber.

"I would love to go to Hogsmeade with you!" I say, completely ignoring Potter's comment. Hogsmeade is perfectly wonderful for a first date. As if Potter could do any better.

Devon grins at me. At this we come to the door of Umbridge's classroom. "Here we go," I say, unable to keep a little fear out of my voice.

"You're late," says a sharp voice. I look up to see a short fat man with a slight greenish hue to his skin. He glares at us. "Sit down." He gestures towards three seats in the front row. I resignedly sit down. Potter and Devon sit on either side of me, giving each other looks that quite adequately summed up their loathing of one another.

"My name is Professor Umbridge. I will make things quite plain: If you speak out of turn, detention. If you speak without permission, detention. If you don't do your assignments, detention. If you cause any disruptions whatsoever, detention. In fact, if you so much as have a naughty thought, there will be detention. And believe me, detention with me will not be fun." He says this all in a slow, pleasant, happy voice that should be saying things such as "have some cake, children!" not nasty threats.

"Any questions?" We all shake our heads. "Good. Please turn to page 132 of _Darkness Through the Ages, _you will read the entire section and write two scrolls of parchment explaining how to correctly use the Cruciatus Curse." We all stare at him. _He wants__ to teach us how to learn an unforgivable curse?! _I shoot my hand into the air.

"Uh Professor, isn't that, well, _illegal?!"_ I demand angrily. He stares at me contentedly.

"I thought I had made myself quite clear. What is your name?"

"Lily Evans."

"Well Miss Evans, you will join me for detention tomorrow evening at seven thirty. Don't be late." Detention?! This deserves punishment? This cruel act by this maniacal teacher deserves the worst punishment. This teacher deserves the worst name I can possibly give him.

Professor Evil Freak of Death.

Yes, Professor Umbridge is now here by known as Professor Evil Freak of Death.

"WHAT?!" Potter suddenly shouts, standing up. "She asked you a question!"

"A question I will answer. The Ministry and I believe that there are certain cases where unusual curses are needed for protection. This is all theoretical, of course," he says, smiling evilly down at all of us, "Detention to you, Mr. Potter." I groan loudly. Great, we have even more detentions together. My life is so much fun. The King of Gorilla People stares in outrage until Sirius Black—who's sitting behind him—pulls him back into his seat. The rest of class is full of us reading the darkest book I've ever seen.

It's horrible. Why anyone would want to know this stuff is beyond me. And I have decided that Professor Evil Freak of Death is now officially my least favorite teacher in the history of the Universe.


	10. Chapter 10

Clarissa is beginning to scare me.  
No, more than scare me.  
She is so utterly terrifying that I'm afraid she will smite me with her gaze alone.  
I don't think it would be very fun to be smited, so I must convert my attention back to the passionate rehearsed speech she is now screaming at us in the seventh year girls' dorm.  
"THIS HAS GOTTEN QUITE OUT OF HAND!" she yells at us, her usual sleek brown hair frizzing up, a highly polished red nail pointing at each of us in turn. "WE ARE LETTING OURSELVES GET QUITE OUT OF CONTROL! THIS IS OUTRAGEOUS! THIS MUST STOP! HOW COULD WE EVER HAVE CONSIDERED DOING SOMETHING SO HORRIBLE TO OURSELVES?!"  
Now if a person walked in at about now, he or she would probably think that Clarissa was saving us from committing suicide, doing heinous crimes, or having an obsession with drugs.  
To be honest, I don't think Clarissa would interfere if we had any of those things on our minds. No, the reason Clarissa is screaming her head off at us due to an unfortunate scale that came innocently into our dorm and ended up bringing this whirlwind of trouble.  
There I was, minding my own business, reading a dramatic romance novel, when It entered the room.  
Yes, It.  
A scale. An old, white, scary, scale.  
Of course it happened to be in the hands of Clarissa.  
And of course she made us all strip off everything (yes, EVERYTHING!) except bras and underwear so that nothing could possible interfere with her knowing our exact weights. Then we all stood on it, one by one, and were forced to share our deadliest, darkest of secrets with our entire five person dorm.  
It. Was. Terrifying.  
It was also humiliating, depressing, embarrassing, mortifying, wounding, offending, shaming, troubling, and generally made me feel like becoming a deranged hermit.  
Lily, the Hermit.  
Lily, the Insane Hermit.

Lily, the Insane, Fat, Hermit.  
But back to the present moment.  
"THIS MUST END! THIS MUST DECEASE! THIS IS A MATTER THAT ONLY WE, THE BRAVEST OF GRYFFINDOR GIRLS, COULD POSSIBLY HOPE TO DEFEAT! THIS MATTER HAS COME OUT OF OUR HANDS, BUT WE CAN STILL BRING IT BACK! THIS MUST BE TAKEN CARE OF! IT IS TOUGH, BUT TRUE, WE MUST LOSE WEIGHT!  
"WE ARE FAT, DISGUSTING CREATURES, IF THIS DOES NOT STOP THEN WE SHALL SOON LOOK LIKE WHALES, FAT WHALES—"  
Lily, the Insane Fat Whale Hermit.  
"WE ARE A DISGRACE TO WOMANKIND! A DISGRACE TO GRYFFINDOR, A DISGRACE TO OUR SCHOOL, OUR COUNTRY, OUR ENTIRE UNIVERSE! EVERYONE SHALL SOON BE ASHAMED OF US, UNABLE TO LOOK US IN THE FACE, UNABLE TO STARE AT OUR OVERFLOWING BODIES, UNABLE TO STAND BEING IN THE SAME ROOM WITH SUCH DISGUSTING CREATURES! UNABLE TO—" "That is quite enough," Guinevere cuts in, glaring at Clarissa with even more anger than she looked at us with. "We are not fat, Clarissa. Just because we have a little bit of curve does not mean we need to live off lettuce. You are letting yourself become confused and brainwashed because of the backwards notions society has imprinted onto your soul. We are NOT fat. We are NOT overweight! You are simply stupid and are seeing through the eyes of The Enemy."

"The Enemy?" Sybill asks tentatively.

"Society," Guinevere clarifies. Everyone except Clarissa look up with a small bit of hope smeared across our faces. We have emerged from our small, sad hovels of hopeless self pity.  
Hip hip horray for Gunievere!  
"Pft!" Clarissa shoots out disgustedly. "I never thought you were one to be dishonest with yourself, Clarissa, but it really is time for you, and us, to face the facts."  
Guinevere and Clarissa glare at each other from opposite ends of the room. Valerie, Sybill and I look at each other, uncertain who to follow, yet forced to make a deathly, dark, and hopeless decision. Choice 1: Accept, that yes, I am indeed in need of a little self control when it comes to that eating stage of the day, crawl into a deep dark corner, become depressed, make plans for hermitage, and start my new life of living off disgusting artifacts such as salads and carrots.  
Hmmmm, somehow it doesn't sound like much fun. Or….  
Choice 2: Go sit at Guinevere's feet and let her boost my self esteem and tell me that I'm a gorgeous, curvaceous woman and all men would simply love to date someone as full figured as me.  
Decisions, decisions.  
After much thought and debate, I think I shall have to go with choice two.  
I step out of Arguing With Myself World and tune into what is happening.  
What Is Happening

_An Amazing Well Thought Out Mind Essay by Me_ 1. Clarissa is standing on top of her bed, her hair becoming a frizzy halo around her face and her shiny red fingertip pointed at us. She is screaming like a dying turtle, yelling words I am unable to understand because I am too preoccupied on dodging the spit that is flying in great speckled wads from her mouth. Which, quite obviously, is gross.

2. Guinevere has both hands in fists, which she has placed securely on her hips. She is yelling just as forcefully as Clarissa, and I am forced to dodge not only Clarissa's flying saliva, but Guinevere's as well. I wonder if their saliva is mixing in the air.

3. Valerie and Sybill, over Clarissa's protests, have quite happily joined Guinevere. They look completely content to watch this unfolding war. I, however, am getting quite fearful that Lily, the Insane Fat Hermit, might not survive this dangerous encounter.  
I take a deep breath and am prepared to walk over and swear my allegiance to Guinevere and her happy cause when I am stopped by Clarissa's furious remark.  
"LILY! YOU, OF ALL PEOPLE, SHOULD BE MOST CONCERNED ABOUT THIS, BECAUSE. YOU. HAVE. A. BOYFRIEND!" She pauses between each word of the last phrase, as if eager to make sure that this comment hits home even more than it already has.  
I freeze.  
This is quite a scary thought.  
Not that it isn't an entirely joyful reflection, but it is slightly intimidating.  
I have a boyfriend. Me. Lily Evans. With a boyfriend.  
And I have absolutely no idea what to do.  
Clarissa, upon seeing the intense look of fear upon my face, decides to make the wound a little deeper.  
"I mean, no offense Lily, but you can't exactly look like, well, you, when dealing with a boyfriend. I mean, this is your, well, first one, and I would think you would want as much help as you could get from someone as experienced as me in this matter. And believe me Lily, I don't think Devon would mind at all if you lost a few pounds. In fact, I think he would be rather, well, pleased."  
She has a point.  
"Lily! Don't listen to her! Your perfect exactly the way you—"  
"That's enough Guinevere," Clarissa cuts in, "I think it's about time Lily made her decision. What's it to be Lils? A perfect body for the perfect boyfriend? Or becoming a fat hermit?"  
How could she possibly have known I was am mortally afraid of hermitage?  
I swear that girl reads minds.  
I think. I think very hard. And then, taking a deep breath, I say the dreaded, fear-inspiring words.  
"Just tell me what to do." Clarissa grins and hugs me while Guinevere sighs and starts talking to Sybill and Valerie about inner beauty.  
"Excellent, Lily! This is quite good news! I will start planning out our new diet and routine, and you head to detention!"  
Oh. I'm so excited. A diet and detention. This is turning out to be such a lovely day.

"You're late," a sharp, cutting voice says as soon as I enter the door. I see Potter already sitting down by a little table in the corner.  
"Sorry, Professor," I mutter, looking down at his horrible puke green carpet.  
"Sit down by your little friend over there…" he gestures towards the table. I pass his desk on the way there and see several pictures of a woman and a teenage girl that both have a startlingly accurate resemblance to toads.  
Two gross toads in fluffy pink dresses.  
Very strange. The room also happens to be painted a very lovely shade of puke, completely with poop-brown lacy curtains. Some people have such taste.  
I sit down next to Potter, who gives me a suave grin and a wink. Stupid boy.  
"You will both be doing lines for me. Here's paper, and….quills. No complaints, you write until I tell you to stop.  
I look down at our black quills, which are very, very sharp. Eerily sharp, as if he uses them to pluck out toad eyes in his spare time.

"What should we be writing?" asks Potter confidently.  
"You will write, 'I must not disrupt class with my stupid thoughts'," he sneers out at us. Ha. Very clever. But my thoughts are not stupid, thank you very much.  
I take the quill and start to write.  
"We don't have any ink Professor," Potter says, smiling in a cocky manner. But I, being too stupid to notice that, had started writing and had figured out quite clearly, that we do not need ink.  
"OUCH!" I scream out, grabbing my hand. Potter takes one look at the red ink on the parchment and then grabs my hand, staring at it as the words I had written flash onto the back of my hand and then leave, leaving the space slightly redder. He stands up, looking angrier then I have ever seen him and still grabbing my hand.  
"You evil, twisted, maniac!" he spits out. "There is no way she, we, are doing this!" Professor Umbridge looks amused.

"Unfortunately, Potter, it seems that I have a little more control over situations such as this than you do. You are my students and it is my responsibility to punish you in any way I see fit. You will both stay an extra hour for that comment." He grins madly and turns back to whatever he was doing on his desk. Probably looking at magazines detailing torture descriptions. Where he would get a magazine like that, I have no idea.  
I look at Potter and he stares back at me just as incredulously. For once we are sided on one purpose. I give him a whatever-we-just-have-to-suck-it-up-and-deal-with-it shrug. But he looks even angrier. I start to pick up my quill, when Potter slams his hand down on mine.  
"Don't," he whispers as quietly as he can. "I'll go fast and slip you some of my paper, then it will look like you did something. I don't want you getting hurt."  
"No, you dolt!" I whisper back in a strangled voice. "If we both have the same handwriting he's gonna know something up. And I can look after myself!" I added, with a touch of venom in my voice. He stares at me helplessly as I start to write. I feel the searing pain again and barely manage to stifle a gasp. After he stares at me for a while I give him a pointed glare and he furiously picks up his quill and starts to write.  
This is going to be a long night.  
"I cannot believe him!" Potter spits out as soon as we leave the office and are out of hearing. "That b—"

"Potter, shut up! Someone might hear you!"  
"I don't care if they do! They need to know what a twisted b—"

"Potter!" I hiss out. "Enough!"  
He grabs my hand and stares at its surface, which is now red and cracked.  
"Enough?! This," he points to my hand, "is enough! But that Umbridge creature needs someone to show him exactly how much we appreciate him and his methods." I pull my hand out of his grasp. I sigh loudly, knowing that it's going to be a long while before Potter has cooled his heals enough to think straight.  
I ignore him the rest of the way back to the common room as he rants and raves. What a sissy.  
"What? Can't take a little pain?" I ask him mockingly.  
"Well I can. I'm just worried about you. I mean, to make a girl do that is just cruel!"   
Excuse me?  
"EXCUSE ME?" I scream out at him. Probably not the best tactic. He looks at me with a little bit of fear on his face. Ha, good to know I can scare him.  
"WHAT ARE YOU SAYING?! THAT JUST BECAUSE I'M A GIRL I CAN'T TAKE THE PAIN?! I'M TOUGH, POTTER! TOUGHER THAN YOU!" Well, knowing me, I'm probably not tougher than he is, but he doesn't need to know that. I run past him and stomp all the way back to my dormitory, ignoring Potter's yells and apologies about how he didn't mean it like that.

Sure he didn't. Bastard.

BANG!  
What is that horrible noise awakening me from my slumber?  
BANGBANGBANGBANG! BINGBING! BANG!  
Stop it!  
BANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBNAGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANG!

"SHUT UP!" I scream out, sitting up straight in bed to see Clarissa banging pans together over my head. Where she got pans at five-thirty in the morning, I do not know.

"It is time," she says solemnly. Time for what? "Time to start our future, to stop our past, to make the world a better place! Time to diet!"  
Yippee. 


	11. Chapter 11

Sometimes, people in life are forced to make hard decisions.  
Almost as hard as the one I'm about to make.  
Should I eat carrots and broccoli for lunch, or simply live off water?  
Those last three sentences were meant to be said in a sarcastic tone of voice, just in case you don't have the mental capacity to decipher that yourself.  
I would also like to point out that the word 'diet' has the word 'die' in it. Obviously this is a sign that all dieting should hereby be stopped.  
Because, you see, I am sitting at the lunch table with Clarissa on one side and Sybill on the other, and I'm surrounded by delectably delicious dishes that are practically drowning in butter and calling me to eat them.  
Lily! Lily! Come eat us! they say. Yes, I am conversing with lunch food. Deal with it.  
And I would probably be my usual obedient self and take the nice food's orders and eat myself up a nice, yummy meal.  
But Clarissa is sitting right there.  
She is sitting there, smiling and laughing while she lives off a small pile of carrot sticks and about twelve glasses of water.  
And she expects me to copy her morbid example.  
It was bad enough at breakfast. I was only allowed the healthy oatmeal with no cinnamon and sugar flavoring in it, and a wheat bagel. A wheat bagel with a disgusting butter substitute that supposedly has half the calories (which I highly doubt, by the way). I do not approve of substitute butter. That is disgusting. Nothing can replace beautiful, delicious, yummy, flavorful butter.  
"Lily!" Clarissa hisses. "What are you doing?!" I sigh and put down the greasy piece of pizza I was about to shove down my throat. "Here," she says, yanking the pizza out of my hands and piling my plate with some gross, wilted, slimy salad.  
Have I mentioned that I hate salad?  
"Clarissa. This is absolutely unacceptable. I absolutely, positively cannot eat leaves. Leaves are for bugs and any other unfortunate animals that are doomed to eat them. I am not a bug or an animal. Therefore, I shall not eat it."  
"Actually," Sybill says laughingly as she eats a big plate of spaghetti at my side, "if I'm remembering correctly from third grade, then humans are animals."  
"No, we're not. We don't eat meat raw, or have weird furry coats, or shed all over the place, or pee all over the carpet. Therefore, we are not animals." Clarissa rolls her eyes and Sybill shakes her head. Apparently they do not understand basic logic.  
It's at this moment in time that my beloved Devon enters the room.  
I start to stand up, planning on greeting my beloved whom I haven't seen for a full two hours and twenty-eight minutes, when Clarissa grabs my shoulder and pulls me back onto my seat.  
"What are you doing?!" she hisses out. She seems to be hissing a lot lately.  
"Why, I'm greeting my dearly beloved, of course." Clarissa shakes her head and again gives me the you-are-a-slug look. I am not a slug. We have gone through this already.  
"You really don't get it, do you?" she asks, smiling as a mother does to a who doesn't understand why the sun has to go down every night.  
"No, apparently I don't get it. Enlighten me."  
"Gladly," she states. "Lily, you can't act so desperate."  
"Desperate?!" I cry incredulously. "How am I desperate?!"  
"Lily, guys don't like it when girls are too clingy and counting the minutes that they've been separated—like I know you've been doing. You have to act like you're used to having a boyfriend, and he really isn't that big of a deal to you."  
"But he is a big deal to me. I've only been asked out by two guys in my life. And one of them was Potter, who quite obviously doesn't count."  
"Well you can't act like that. Lily, just listen to me. You are going to act like a cool, calm, and collected adult. You will act mature. Pretend not to notice him and don't act like your usual self whenever he's around. Or at any time, for that matter. To start off with, don't eat like a bloody pig!"

She certainly has a way with words.  
Clarissa pushes at the small of my back, forcing me to get out of my regular slouching position.  
"Sit up straight. Don't look at him. Start laughing at something, but don't laugh in that usual way of yours, and try to be as pretty as possibly. And look nonchalant."  
"What does nonchalant mean?" She sighs, looking at me as if I'm even less then a slug, like I'm a squashed slug.  
"It means cool, calm, and collected."  
"Gotcha."  
So, I start to look cool, calm, and collected. I find that it's quite simple. I sit up ramrod straight, put on a serious expression. And giving a serious (ish) smile. But I don't smile in my usual way. No, the new and improved Lily Evans is too good for that. Instead, I give a little I'm-better-than-you-!-smile.  
Devon walks over and sits next to me. He smiles.  
"Hi," he says.  
"Why hello there, good sir." Yup; cool, calm and collected. He gives me a weird look and dishes himself out a big pile of spaghetti. Clarissa groans and puts her head in her hands. She is probably overcome with joy about my newfound maturity. I decide to enlighten her further.  
"So I heard from my amalgamate that the austere allotment of our moribund camaraderie is promptly going to exacerbate. What is your presupposition of this matter?"  
Alas, the matureness of my conversation baffles even me sometimes!  
"Um, what?"  
"Aren't you aware of how to converse in a mature manner?"  
At this point I believe there is a bruise on Clarissa's head from banging it on the table so many times. Devon shakes his head and starts up a new conversation, slouching in his seat as he shoves spaghetti into his mouth.  
"So, what do you think of Umbridge?"  
"I believe that he is a baneful, calamitous, nefarious, rancorous, vile, unpropitious and altogether schmucky nincompoop."  
"Uh, yeah," he looks at me confusedly, "I, um, I agree."  
"I do like how mature our colloquy is this fine post meridian."  
"Um, yeah, me too." I know he must be very impressed by now with my amazing skill. I shall now impress him further.  
"Your shirt looks very recherché on you today."  
"Ummmmm…."  
"And the color of your oculuses does make your coiffure look particularly debonair."  
"Uh, Lily….."  
"And I am particularly looking forward to our seminary en masse."  
"Lily, I gotta go!" And with that last immature remark, he races out of the room.  
I stare at Clarissa, waiting for her to give me a proud nod or something of the sort, but instead she continues to bang her head on the table.  
"Lily, What. Have. You. Done?"  
"What do you mean?! I was making intellectually stimulating conversation." Sybill suddenly decides to join what used to be a mature conversation.  
"And what is a 'nincompoop,' anyway?"

**Author's notes: I know, i know, i know! that was really short, i got it. But i've been busya nd i thought i should update before you guys gave up on my story. Thatnk for all the reviews guys!!!! (but a few more would be greatly appreciated)**


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter 12

I am a very, very, bad girl.

It is two in the morning and I am in the Hogwarts kitchen stuffing my face with delicious, chocolate-covered cake. The cake is practically bursting with icing that has been dyed blue by some very kind house-elves. I am surrounded by cakes and very teeny elves who keep asking me very dangerous questions, such as, "Would you like some more cake, Miss Lily?" And they keep asking, so I have no choice but to accept, now, do I?

I am envisioning Clarissa's face if she ever saw me doing this.

I must remember never to tell her.

Now there are several reasons why I am in this horrible predicament which I shall gladly list for you.

1. My boyfriend hasn't talked to me since….The Incident.

2. I have not eaten due to Clarissa's tyranny.

3. Because of Clarissa's twisted diet, I had no energy and completely made a fool of myself in Charms.

4. My owl died.

Yes, I have to admit that the last incident on the list was the most traumatic. My poor owl, who I have had since I was a wee one in first year, is, alas, dead.

But there is something even worse then my owl dying; it was _how _my owl died. For my owl died at the infamously evil hands of the one and only James Prick Potter.

Now I want to be fair, so I cannot give Prick Potter _all _the blame. But some fault definitely lies with him.

You see, Pernicious Prick Potter happens to have a horribly horrid cat named—are you ready for this, it's just so original—Cat.

Yes, I know. A cat named Cat. However does he think of these things?

I am quite pleased to tell you that my owl had a much more original name; Princess Humphrey.

Princess Humphrey was a very good owl and most of the time she managed to deliver the mail to somewhere around the address I'd assigned her. She was a very pretty black owl and I took great joy in sneaking her into the dorm and letting her poop on Clarissa's bed.

I loved Princess Humphrey but she was slain by Pestilent Pernicious Prick Potter's evil cat named Cat. Which I am quite depressed about.

It was a horrid, drawn out affair that happened in front of the entire Great Hall. I will now state the horrible facts that have led to this sad event:

It was a dark and stormy night—well morning actually, but who cares anyway, it was probably night time in China—when the Pestilent Pernicious Prick Potter came down to breakfast, holding his ugly, furry, white and fluffy cat named Cat.

He walked into the great hall, holding the fluffy, un-masculine _beast_, and plopped his ugly arse down next to me.

"Why good morning, Evans!" he exclaimed, putting his horridly hairy beast on my lap and grabbing some toast.

"Get this thing off me, Potter!" I growled.

"No, I don't think I will; he likes it there. His name isn't 'Thing' by the way, it's Cat."

Must I mention again the complete unoriginality of this name?

So I proceeded to try to shove the cat off me. Now, this should've been an easy task—even though the Cat is very fat—but the Thing named Cat dug its horrible hairy claws into my leg and if I dared to even push it the slightest bit, it attempted to rip my legs off. (Which I have full confidence it is completely capable off doing, as demonstrated by the upcoming decapitation of my owl)

This is the horribly sad part of my story that, if made into a movie, would have a full theatre practically drowning in tears; it's that sad, I assure you.

Princess Humphrey swooped down from the sky, happy and carefree. I could see she carried a letter from my parents and I could practically sense the happiness radiating from her as she swooped down. To her, life was good.

As she joyfully, innocently, and trustingly came down to responsively deliver her letter…. It Happened.

The horribly horrid cat named Cat tore its claws away from my skin and jumped into the air, ripping my happy owl away from her true home. Cat grabbed her by her neck and yanked her down to the ground; ripping and tearing at her, the poor little thing, until Princess Humphrey was a sad little hump on top of the breakfast potatoes.

I was—being the true Gryffindor that I am—attempting to help the poor little thing. I do believe that my hysterical screaming and sobs of horror were quite helpful at this time.

Prick Potter was yelling at Cat and trying to grab him off the mangled body of Princess Humphrey. Everyone in the hall was staring by now at the poor dead owl and me hysterically crying and Prick Potter trying to pull his cat away.

It made quite a scene, I tell you.

Guinevere came over and put an arm around my shoulders; we both observed the cat. She was solemn and I was completely flipping out at the point. I was very attached to Princess Humphrey. Prick Potter was staring horrified at my owl. He seemed to be in complete shock, as if he couldn't believe that Perfect Precious Cat could ever commit first degree murder.

After I calmed down a bit I realized I should be using my energy for more destructive means.

"YOU KILLED PRINCESS HUMPHREY!" I screamed at the evil boy. He looked rather frightened actually and didn't seem to know what to say.

"I'm… I'm… I'm really— I didn't…. I wasn't try—"

"I DON'T CARE WHAT YOUR INTENTIONS WERE, YOU KILLED PRINCESS HUMPHREY!"

"Correction: _Cat_ killed Princess Humphrey. Jamie here didn't do nothin'."

"YOU SHUT UP SIRIUS BLACK! AND USE PROPER GRAMMAR FOR HEAVENS SAKE!" I added at the end; I hate people who speak like bums.

"Lily, I'm really, really, really sorr—"

"I DON'T CARE YOU PRICK! YOU PESTILENT PERNICIOUS _PRICK!"_ I don't know exactly what "pernicious" means, but it sounds really mean and it starts with a "p".

Potter looks at me helplessly and starts to reach out a hand.

"Lily…"

"NO!" And with that, screaming and sobbing, I exit the Great Hall with Guinevere in tow and three hundred people staring at me in shock. Devon was one of those people. Paired with our amazing conversation yesterday, I'm afraid to say that I don't believe Lily Evans will have a boyfriend much longer.

And that is the end of my sad, sad tale. Oh. Here I go. Sobbing all over again.

I think I'll go get more cake.


	13. Chapter 13

Chapter 13

"SIIIIIIIIII-UHHHHHHHHH-LEEEEEEEEENT NIIIIIIIIIIIIIIGHT! HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO-OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOLY NIGHT! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALLLLLL IIIIIIIIIS CAALM! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALL IS BRIGHT! ROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOUUUUUNNNNND YON—"

Apparently it's the annual celebration of Only Sixty-Seven Days Until Christmas. This "annual" holiday was just declared by the Gorilla People. Sirius, of course, has already got himself into the Christmas spirit enough to belt out every Christmas song known to man. The moment the teacher walked out of the room, he continued singing the carols he had started at 5:30 this morning and hasn't stopped. He has already gone through every Christmas song I know and has since decided to repeat Silent Night 50 million times. If he doesn't stop soon, I will be forced to decapitate his tongue and blame it on Clarissa.

"DASHING THROUGH THE BLOOD! ON A ONE PIG OPEN SLEIGH! O'ER THE BEDS WE GOOOOO! CACKLING ALL THE WAAAAAAAY! (MWA HA HA) BELLS ON CATS' BUTTS RING! MAKING HORSES BRIGHT! WHAT FUN IT IS TO CUSS AND DRINK AS WE ALL FLY AWAY! OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHH—"

Idiot. Of course he has to transform one of the best Christmas carols ever into his own perverted rendition. That song is now ruined forever in my mind. I mean, "Cat's butts"? I'm never going to get past that one.

Clarissa takes time from laughing and clapping at her beloved to hiss and throw a note at my head. Great, that's really what I need right now, a note from another one of Sirius's fangirls.

_SiriusIsMyHero: Lily, what is your problem? You look like death._

Typical. She's such a kind friend.

_TemperLikeTheDevil: Yes, thank __you, Clarissa. Your__ brilliant insight always proves most helpful to my self esteem. I'm quitting the __diet, by__ the way._

I throw the note back at her. She opens it, sighs dramatically, and writes again. She throws it back.

_SiriusIsMyHero: Fine. Be a quitter. You'll regret it when you're an old fat maid [fat old maid? with too many cats. So, back to my original question, why do you look like death?_

_TemperLikeTheDevil: 1. I am in a mourning period. It is traditional that when you're in mourning you go around in all black and act sad. I'm already in black so now I'm acting sad. I will also be conducting a funeral for Princess Humphrey later this __afternoon. You__ are welcome to join me._

_2. Me and Devon are, alas, over. The coward sent me an owl at midnight last night __saying, "Let's__ just be friends". __Friends, my arse. He__ just made himself one hell of an enemy._

_3. We are sitting in Arithmancy. Have I mentioned I hate Arithmancy? _

_4. The evil person whom we shall now refer to only as The Nameless One won't stop staring at me and throwing notes at me. Cleverly, I have been pretending that I don't notice the notes that hit my head. He's completely oblivious to my little plan, yet it is still very annoying that he won't give up._

_5. I have developed an enormous zit on my forehead. I have named it Devon. _

_SiriusIsMyHero: Get a life._

_TemperlikeTheDevil: What? That is the only comment I get from my best friend? Geez, I feel loved. May I also point out that your secret code name is ridiculous? I can't believe you like that little creep. Have you heard what he's been singing?_

_SiriusIsMyHero. I think it's cute. And what's the point of having secret __names, anyway__? We have already revealed our true identities._

_TemperlikeTheDevil: Oh shit, you're right! We must destroy this paper! Burn it! Cut it into tiny pieces that we throw __in__to the wind! No one must know our secrets!_

_SiriusIsMyhero: You're pathetic. Nobody cares about your __secrets, Lily._

_TemperLikeTheDevil: I resent that._

"MOO SAYS COW! MOO SAYS COW! MOO SAYS COW ON CHRISTMAS EVE! MOO SAYS COW! MOO SAYS COW! MOO SAYS COW ON CHRISTMAS EVE!"

Apparently Sirius has run out of Christmas carols and is now making up his own. Personally, I don't like his grammar.

"Sirius, I believe you mean _The cow says 'moo' on Christmas eve. _Your way makes absolutely no sense."

Sirius stops his singing and turns to look at me.

"My way makes perfect sense, thank you very much. You don't seem to be in the Christmas spirit, Lily! Why don't you join me in some Christmas fun?!"

Ummmmm….no.

"Sirius, have you no sense? My owl has just been brutally murdered by your best friend, and you think I want to sing Christmas carols with you? It's September. It's not Christmas season for another two months!"

"Don't be ridiculous, Evans! Your dumb owl wasn't murdered by James! Prongs had no control over the situation! Honestly, you girls are so stupid, sometimes." The Nameless One is sitting next to Sirius and staring miserably at his feet. For once[he looks at looking t a loss for words. Sirius, as oblivious as ever starts up another carol.

"GOD KILL YOU MERRY IDIOTS, LET YOUR SPLEEN BE ON DISPLAY! REMEMBER COWS WILL LICK THEMSELVES TO DEATH ON CHRISTMAS DAY! TO SAVE US ALL FROM EVAN'S TEMPER WHEN WE WERE IN HER WAY! OOOOOOO-OHHHHHHHH, TIDINGS OF BIRD DROPPINGS TODAY! BIRD DROPPINGS TODAY! OOOOOOO-OOOOOH TIDINGS OF BIRD DROPPINGS TODAY!"

I gape wordlessly at his absolutely horrible logic for a few moments before stomping right out of the classroom. It's only five minutes until lunch, anyway, and Guinevere will cover for me. I hope.

"'OH, LOVETTE! YOU ARE SO BEAUTIFUL! SO SWEET! SO KIND! LET'S GET MARRIED NOW!' 'OH, CERTAINLY, VIDANRIC! I'M SO HAPPY WE ARE FINALLY TOGETHER! BUT, OH DEAR, YOU ARE BLEEDING! DID THAT NASTY JONATHAN HURT YOU?!' 'OH DARLING, I CELEBRATE FOR EVERY DROP OF LOVE THAT IS SPILLED FOR YOUR SAKE!' 'OH, VIDANRIC!' OH, LOVETTE!' OH, VID—"

I scream in rage and throw my goblet of pumpkin juice at that nasty monster's head. How dare he.

"BLACK! PUT THE ROMANCE DOWN! NOW!" Black grins at me from across the room, my bag slung across his shoulders and parchment held aloft in his hands. A whole crowd of people swarms around him, laughing. Even The Nameless One is smiling sheepishly.

"Hmmm, well, you see Lily, after you so unceremoniously stomped out of the room, I thought to myself, _wouldn't it be nice if I brought Lily her bag? _And then I answered myself that yes, it would be very nice. So, innocently and with no ill-intention, I picked up your bag, and look what I found! This beautiful romance of yours, written by you! Of course, it was my duty to to share with everyone else the beauty of your story. We have all quite enjoyed the story of Lovette and Vid—"

"ENOUGH!" I run at the Black creature, slap him across the face and rip my beloved romance from his hands. I grab my bag from him, slap him again, and just for good measure slap the Nameless One, as well. With that, I sprint my way through the still laughing crowd and manage to get through the doors just as Sirius starts up another carol about a cow and a frog.

Another eventful day in the eventful life of Lily Evans.


	14. Chapter 14

I can't believe him. His actions are absolutely unbelievable. I. Cannot. Believe. Him.

There I was, outside, in the rain burying poor Princess Humphrey, when it happened. I had found quite a nice space to bury my precious owl, it was a little nook between two different stone walls. I had used my wand to dig through the ground and placed my precious darling into the hole, all the while sobbing my eyes out. It was quite traumatic actually. I saw simply standing their, moping, when the Dreaded Beast entered my eye site.

"YOU!" I screeched at him like some sort of demented old crone. I even pointed my finger and hunched my back a bit. When he continued to stare at him I pointed my other hand at him too and then started growling. Yes, literally, growling. Like a dog.

It made me feel quite a bit better.

I think they should prescribe growling at people you don't like to anger management patients. Who knows, in another ten years we might all go around growling at each other. I am quite a talented growler. I remember back I grade school I was always casted in the school plays as some sort of wild beast.

But does the Dreaded Beast recognize my talent?

Nope.

"Lily, what are you doing?"

And that's when I start maniacally laughing. And not just laughing like an evil witch or something. I laughed like a crazy, hysterical, somewhat drunk, hyena. Can hyenas even get drunk? Why I was laughing, simple, Potter was holding a basket.

Yes, a basket. You are all allowed to gasp dramatically now.

It was one of those old fashioned, colored Easter-egg baskets. It even has some pink ribbon wrapped around the handle. I adjusted my pointed fingers from his face to his basket and continued my hysterical laughing.

The Dread Beast seems somewhat used to my behavior however and he doesn't act like anything's wrong. He simply walks over and stares down at me somewhat nervously.

"Uh, Lily?"

"That would be me." He glances nervously at me again and then stares back down at the ground. It's funny, he seems so intimidated by me, it actually makes me feel tall! Which is quite the feat considering I'm 5' 3" and he towers over me like a thirty story building would tower over my house.

"I just wanted to tell you, that I'm really, really sorry about Princess Humphrey. I never ever meant for Cat to do something like that." He actually seems pretty sincere. Shocker. He then holds up the basket to me.

"This might come as a surprise to you Potter, but I'm really not interested in all of these pre-holiday festivities. I've already suffered through your dumb Christmas thing today and don't think I can handle Easter as well. He ignores me and opens the basket. I peer inside and see a kitten.

"I thought, that since, uh, your bird died, you might want Tabby here." Tabby? That's practically the most unoriginal name for a cat there is. That's like naming a goldfish _Goldie_, You just don't do it. This guy is so bad at naming things it's almost comical. Almost.

"Potter, you did realize that the cat is not a tabby. It's obviously a British Tortoiseshell Shorthair." Duh. Couldn't he tell by its black, red, and cream colors? Its golden eyes? He really needs to improve on his cat knowledge. He gives me a confused look.

"Um, okay. But please take him. Think of him as a peace offering."

"I don't want a peace offering, I want war!" Well, I do. It is kinda fun.

"Lily, please! I really really am sorry, I thought this might make it up to you." I stare at him for a moment and let out one last small growl before taking the basket. I can't trust Potter with Goncalvo, which is the new name of the cat in case you're too stupid to figure that out.

"Well, thanks Lils, take care of tabby for me!"

"His name is _Goncalvo."_

"What?"

"His name is no longer _Tabby," _I spit out. "His name is Gonçalo. It's a Portuguese name. It means "battle genius" or "war elf".

"War Elf? Why would you name your cat that?"

"Because me and _Gonçalo _are declaring war on you and Cat. You _will _die." He gives me a hard look.

"You're on." How dramatic is that? Can he think of nothing more interesting or exciting to say?

"Prepara-te para perder, seu monstro cruel que é mau a dar nomes!"

Yes, I speak Portuguese. And in case you were wondering that translates to "Prepare to lose, you evil monster who is bad at naming!" now that's creativity!


	15. Chapter 15

_Dearest Lily,_

_I'm sure you are having a lovely time at school._

_You will be pleased to know that I have not one, not two, but _three_ charming and eligible boys who I have set up dates for you with upon your return in December._

_Love,_

_Your adoring mother._

I keep this note by my bed not because I'm appreciative of my mother's ridiculous thoughts, but because it is the last thing that poor Princess Humphrey ever delivered. It shall stay with me always as a testament to his bravery.

On the other hand, I am pleased to inform you that Goncalvo the war Elf is doing simply splendid. I have already managed to make him poop on Clarissa and Guinevere's make up. Mwahahaha, they shall never coat me in that hideous junk ever, ever again.

But today I will remain focused, or I am on a mission of the utmost importance.

Revenge.

"Focus, Lily. Please! We must perfect our plan!" Guinevere and I sit on her bed—mine being too messy to find somewhere to sit—and our looking over the piece of parchment that holds the plans for our Extreme and Extravagant Prank. If you don't know who we're pranking than I would suggest getting your head checked.

"Guinevere, I believe our plan is perfected, we must move, now! Before the end of the Hour of the Mouse!"

"The hour of the mouse?" she asks me, rolling her eyes.



"Yes, it is two in the morning, that is the hour of the mouse." She doesn't even bother to respond but instead gathers the supplies and walks behind me as we sneak through our dorm. The rest of my so called friends are asleep, not even aware of the terror that shall be released come morning. We sneak down to the Great Hall and walk directly to the middle of the Gryffindor table, right to the spot where the Gorilla People _always_ sit.

It is there that we unleash our wrath upon the unsuspecting audience. We prepare to follow through with our plan, the epitome of creativity, the peak of evil genius, the absolute definition of revenge.

We place thumb tacks on their seats.

Cackling as we work, we finish the job, giving each other well deserved high fives as we run from the Great Hall, our mission complete.

"EVANS!" I'm walking towards the Great Hall, rather earlier than usual so as not to miss the show, when I am accosted by McGonagall, or, as I personally like to call here, Captain Hook.

Why? You might ask. Because she reminds me of Captain Hook from peter Pan, can't you just imagine her forcing innocent children such as me to walk the plank?

I stop walking and longingly watch Guinevere and Valerie continue their trek to the Great Hall. Jealousy fills my heart as never before. I attempt to smooth my face into a responsible position.

"Yes, professor?" I ask her innocently.

"Miss Evans, I am most displeased with you. Your performance in my class not only last year but the little time we've had together this year has been abysmal. You will join me tonight, and every other night I see fit, until your work is up to par.



"Yes, Captain Hook," I answer. And then stop, stunned. Did I really just call her that? It had slipped out, I hadn't meant it! What evil punishment would I receive for this mistake? As I desperately stood shaking I could see the Marauders walking past me into the Great Hall, I was going to miss it!

"_What did you call me?"_ she hissed at me, turning a shade of blue that I didn't even think was possible for a human. I didn't answer, not that she expected me to. No, she just started ranting at me about my complete and utter disrespect and her shame that I was in her house. I listened for the first thirty seconds and then sunk into myself, reflecting the unfairness of not being able to see the Marauders reaction at our genius prank.

Eventually, with one last huff in my direction, she stalked off. With a sigh I went into the dining hall, already resigned to the fact that I would not be able to see my great prank unfold. As soon as I entered I looked straight at the Marauders. Were they gasping in pain? Talking about my genius? Planning my revenge?

No.

They were laughing their heads off and examining the thumb tacks I had set on their chairs. I sprinted over to Guinevere.

"What happened? What spoiled our amazing plan?"

"Well, they sat on them, but their arses are so hard no one felt anything except for Pettigrew. And then they just kinda looked at me and started laughing." I groaned. The marauders were already walking towards me. Pestilent Prick Potter held up the thumbtack.

"Nice. Real, real nice," the Remus creature said, grinning.

"Your cleverness and creativity knows no boundaries!" Sirius exclaimed. And I do believe he was being sarcastic.

"How _dare_ you insult me!" I screeched at them. "It was an amazing plan! You couldn't have done any—"

"So," Sirius interrupted, throwing an arm around my shoulder. "Have you written any more stories about Vidanric and Lovette? I would simply _love _to read them!" he sniggered, looking around at everyone as if to invite them too to enjoy his little joke.

Right when I was about to truly blow about at that Stupid Saggy Seahorse, known to the common public as Sirius. Pestilent Potter intervened.

"I thought it was a really well written story. You should be a writer Lily." Stupid Saggy Seahorse and I shared the same look of astonishment as we gaped at him.

"Are you making fun of me?" I demanded, hands on hips and trying my best to give him me Angry Warlord look.

"No! Of course not. I really liked it. Have you written more?" His expression looked innocent enough. But this was pestilent Potter, the king of pricks and Gorilla People: nothing was certain with him.

"Yes, I have written lots more. But I cannot get to it even if I believed your intentions were the slightest bit honorable. You probably just mean to spread them around the school and make fun of me like Stupid Saggy Seahorse did." Sirius looked slightly taken aback as he realized who I was talking about but potter didn't miss a beat.

"I would _never_ do that. And Sirius was going to apologize about that, _weren't you Sirius?"_ The seahorse cleared his throat.

"Uh, right. My deepest and most sincere of apologies, Madame." He swept me a long, low bow. Potter turned back to me.

"But what do you mean you can't get to them?" I looked at him. Could I trust him?

"Do you remember The Terrifying Incident of Vertical Fear and Slimy Snogs?" I asked him in my most dangerous, conspiring voice.

"Uh. You mean when you fell from the roof?" I nodded solemnly.

"Well, The Terrifying Incident of Vertical Fear and Slimy Snogs has given me the most terrible fear of heights, and now I am unable to retrieve my other amazingly well written romances from the roof." He gaped at me.

"WHAT?" I was startled, and jumped a little backwards.

"Yes, I know, it's a tragedy." I buried my face in my hands.

"But—But that means," he sputtered out. "That means you can't play quidditch!"

"Yes, I suppose it does," I answered grimly.

"But I'm quidditch captain, and we'll lose without you. I can't have us lose when I'm captain!" But my fear of heights was suddenly not important. For he had said the very thing that I feared above everything else.

"WHAT THE HELL DO YOU MEAN YOU'RE QUIDDITCH CAPTAIN?!" he suddenly looked scared. So did the seahorse and the Remus creature, who grabbed Pettigrew and started sprinting for an exit, obviously fearing my wrath. Potter didn't seem to know what to say.

"I'm, sorry?" I swelled angrily.



"WELL YOU HAD DAMN WELL BETTER BE, POTTER! FOR WE BOTH KNOW I'M THE BETTER PLAYER!" He mouthed wordlessly at me. It was then that I noticed that the entire student population of the hall was staring at me. That seems to be happening more and more lately. It was then that Guinevere grabbed me and started dragging me from the hall, an embarrassed looking Clarissa helping her. I continued to scream menacingly at him as they carted me away, even giving him the Scary Old Crone look I had given him when he had witnessed Princess Humphrey's funeral.

But what was Potter doing?

Laughing.

We'll see whose laughing after I'm done with him.


End file.
